The film 's large cast followed Leigh 's lead and agreed to work for much lower than their usual salaries . Rudolph invited them to write their own dialogue , which resulted in a chaotic first couple of days of principal photography . Actor Campbell Scott remembered , " Everyone hung on to what they knew about their characters and just sort of threw it out there . " Actress Jennifer Beals discussed this in her appearance on the Jon Favreau documentary program '' Dinner for Five '' , wherein she stated that much dialogue was improvised in the style of the real-life characters actors were playing , but that many of those characters were not integral to the plot . As such , many of the actors had much larger parts that were edited down to nearly nothing . The cast trusted their director during the 40-day shoot . They stayed in a run-down hotel dubbed Camp Rudolph and engaged in all-night poker games . Leigh chose not to participate in these activities , preferring to stay in character on and off camera . She did a great amount of research for the role and said , " I wanted to be as close to her as I possibly could . " To this end , Leigh stayed for a week at the Algonquin Hotel and read Parker 's entire body of work . In addition , the actress listened repeatedly to the two existing audio recordings of Parker in order to perfect the writer 's distinctive voice . Leigh found that Parker " had a sensibility that I understand very , very well . A sadness . A depression . " A rough cut of '' Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle '' was screened at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival where it divided film critics . It was rumored afterwards that Leigh re-recorded several scenes that were too difficult to understand because of her accent but she denied that this happened . The film was an Official Selection at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Palme d'Or .
1993 Cannes Film Festival
1993 Cannes Film Festival
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle