Even the child actors didn't know during the shooting, that the role of Kurt was played by a girl, Birgit Komanns. Director Wolfgang Becker introduced the actress to the cast as Bernd Komanns, which is a male name.
None of children playing the members of the suburban crocodiles were professional actors. Birgit Komanns ("Kurt Wolfermann") was cast from a school for handicapped people in Bergisch-Gladbach, all the others were local kids from Bracht, a part of town of Brüggen in North Rhine-Westphalia, where the movie was filmed. Apart from appearing in the documentary Bleibt knackig, Freunde! (1982), none of them ever took an acting job again.