Over the years I have collected many facts about La Femme Nikita that I have thought were interesting or note worthy. Most of these facts I have gotten from message boards like Heyn's Hussies Message Board and from people involved in the show who spoke in articles and chats like Christopher Heyn. As far as I know, the facts below are true. If you know a little known fact about La Femme Nikita or know of a fact I have here that is false let me know by emailing me here.
La Femme Nikita is based on a French movie by the same name written and directed by Luc Besson, starring Anne Parillaud as Nikita. Nikita in the movie was put into jail because she killed a police officer in a drug store robbery. She was sentenced to life in prison but was kidnapped by a government organization that trained her as an assassin. In the movie, you hardly see the Operations and Birkoff characters. But Madeline is named Amande and is more of a finishing school teacher than a kick ass profiler as in the tv series. Michael's character is named Bob and seems to have more power than our Michael. Also Gray Wellman (Nikita's boyfriend in Gray) is very close to the movie's Marco character.
Later, the French version was remade in English as Point of No Return starring Bridget Fonda. It was again remade in Hong Kong as Black Cat starring Jade Leung.
You can tell what season an episode is from by looking at the episode title. Season one episode titles have one word(Love, War, etc), season two episode titles have two words (Not Was, Psychic Pilgrim, etc), season three episode titles have three words (Looking For Michael, etc), season four episode titles have four words (Up The Rabbit Hole, etc.), and season five episode titles have five words (A Time For Every Purpose, etc).
"Cherchez la femme, cherchez la femme... dans la nuit, dans la nuit" means "Seek/look for the woman in the night" in English.
The Section Van is manufactured by Winnebago Industries, although it was painted black specifically for the show and modified somewhat. The large black vans often used by Section One for nabbing terrorists and other suspicious individuals are black Chevy Suburbans.
The holographic screens most often seen during briefings was made by a Mac.
The Torture Twins names are Henry and Elizabeth.
In Season One it took over an hour combing Roy's hair to make it look like it wasn't combed.
"Love" was the first episode filmed to get the cast "comfortable" with each other.
Felicity Waterman who played Karen in "Recruit" originally tried out for the role of Nikita but lost the role to Peta Wilson.
Roy Dupuis wasn't originally suppose to be a permanent cast member. He was to have stayed for about 8 episodes only.
One of the scenes edited in the episode "Nikita" was when Birkoff is trying to teach Nikita about computers during her training period and she's just messing around with his glasses instead of paying attention. Birkoff gets annoyed, gives her 10 seconds to open a file(she tells him she could open it and he tests her), and she places her pencil to Birkoff's throat and threatens him to open it for her. She says "See, got it in 9."
Peta's brother Rob was in the episode "Friend". He is the one right inside the door of the building when Mijovech first arrives. He's also in the scene when they return to the airport. He's the one that gets out of the car with Peta. You will see him standing behind her when she is speaking with Mijovech as he boards the plane. Rob also is walking along the airplane as it is taxing out. He is right in front of Peta and Roy.
In "Gray", it was originally scripted that the Directory was discovered in a magazine in Gray's apartment, but the ending seemed too pat and forced, so the producers decided during the editing of the episode that leaving it open-ended was more interesting story-wise.
It was Roy Dupuis's idea to do the famous 'hand dance' in "Escape".
Peta received a concussion when a stuntman slammed her head into the tree too hard in "Mother" because she'd wanted to make it as realistic as possible.
The house used in "Mother" was used again as Helmut's in "Man In The Middle" and "Love, Honor, And Cherish".
The place used in filming "War" was some sort of garbage facility or warehouse.
During the planning stages of the episode "War", talk bandied about that the information about Simone and the unnamed child had been planted in Michael's file to make him more sympathetic to Nikita. However, that plot point was abandoned. The first draft of "War" was written by Maurice Hurley. Because he came on as a staff writer late in Season One, he was not present at the time "Simone" was shot. This may explain why it was Maury's impression that the Simone backstory didn't really happen, hence the original Tag stating that very thing. When Joel and the writers read the Tag, they realized that the "Simone wasn't real" angle would never work, and more significantly, would diminish the character of Michael. Nevertheless, the idea of the son being a faked story was present in the Tag until, it too, was finally eliminated.
The episode "Voices" was originally named "Rape".
The episode "Mercy" was originally scheduled as a two-parter named "Father".
In every second season episode, if you look into the background of many scenes outside of Section One, you will see a man with a goatee. This man was played by Jim Murrin and his twin brother, Geoff. They were actually LFN's Property Masters. Jim has had a crowd scene in every Season Two episode. If he doesn't appear on the aired version, it is just because the scene he appeared in was cut. He usually is just someone in the crowd or an innocent bystander. But it was revealed in "Adrian's Garden" that the twins played spies working for Adrian who were keeping tabs on Nikita. Some examples are in "Not Was", they were in the lobby of the Gentleman's club Michael went to at the end of the episode. In "Open Heart", he was sitting behind Nikita in bus when she was arrested for drug smuggling and in "Psychic Pilgrim", he was a neighbor walking his dog when Michael leaves.
Nikita's car was originally Jurgen's as seen in the Season 2 opening arc. It is a black Porsche Boxter.
Roy was [slightly] injured by a piece of falling equipment in Season Two. In "Third Person" you can see the cut over his right eye as Michael leaves the room after his fight scene with Jurgen and in the last shot of Michael at the end of the episode.
Ops was suppose to be the father of Terry's baby in "Soul Sacrifice" and this was revealed at the tag of the episode where Nikita looks up into the perch after Terry is escorted out, but Eugene Robert Glazer had problems with it, so the producers changed the scene and it got cut out.
Brioni Farrell, who portrayed Renee in "Hand to Hand", is Eugene Glazer's wife.
The swan dive Nikita does in "Someone Else's Shadow" was at first done by a stunt double, then by Peta Wilson from the 2nd floor of the building.
Scenes were created and added in for "Outside The Box" during Nikita's flashbacks about the night she was attacked. You can see the inconsistencies, such as Nikita's nose ring.
Margot Kidder who played Nikita's mother in "Walk On By" is the aunt of Janet Kidder who first appeared as Viscano in "First Mission". Janet Kidder also played the younger Roberta during the flashbacks in "Walk On By".
The young girl (the Nikita clone) from "Imitation Of Death" is the little sister of the girl who played young Nikita from the flashbacks seen in "Walk On By".
To elongate her hair, Peta Wilson wore extensions in "Hand To Hand".
Roy Dupuis subtly gives 'the finger' in "Man In The Middle" when Michael and Nikita first meet Helmut in his office. It was some kind of an 'in' joke.
From the "Man In The Middle" teaser, look at Madeline's screen. There's a small part where Nikita is shown and it looks exactly like the scene where Walter confronts Michael and Nikita about Willy in "Sympathy For The Devil".
"Deliver Me" by Sarah Brightman was the song they'd originally planned on playing for the love sequence in "No One Lives Forever", but they couldn't get the rights (or something) to it, so "Unglued" was played instead.
In one of the scripts for "Abort, Fail, Retry, Terminate", Birkoff was not suppose to die.
Cindy Dolenc's British accent for her character Quinn, is fake.
In "Let No Man Put Asunder" when Michael confronts Nikita in her office, a scene was cut which had Michael and Nikita making love. The camera zoomed out and you see Roy and Peta completely nude, with hands and legs placed in strategic areas to hide certain body parts. Some people saw pictures and the scene at a LFN convention but the scene was never aired on TV.
Episodes Nikita and Michael made love: Hard Landing,
Psychic Pilgrim, Cat And Mouse(but with Abby), All Good Things, Beyond the Pale, Third Party Ripoff, Playing with Fire, Into The Looking Glass, No One Lives Forever, Catch A Falling Star, Time Out Of Mind, Up The Rabbit Hole, Let No Man Put Asunder
Those still alive in Section (not quite dead): Walter, Nikita, Michael, Jason, Michelle, Jasmine, Quinn, Torture Twins, Naomi, Gail, Adam, Michelle, and Mentz.
Final Section One Death Count of Operatives: Simone?, An operative helping to protect Mijovich(Friend), Roger(Treason), Chuck and a couple of other ops(Mother), Eric(Escape), Porter and Lange(Gray), Guy Maygar(Innocent), Shellen(Gambit), Karyn(Recruit), Lonnie(Noise), 4 Operatives in Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Tunisia (War), Unknown number of operatives in Zurich and North Africa(War), 8 Locations worth of operatives - 40% of Section(War), Four or Five operatives as bait(War), Clayton(War), 5 members of the Abeyance Pool(Mercy), Ackerman(Hard Landing), Baker and 3 of Jurgen's men (3rd Person), Jurgen(Approaching Zero), Stillman(Mandatory Refusal), Petriosian(New Regime), Grecko(First Mission), Vizcaino(First Mission), Terry?(Soul Sacrifice), Dave(Fuzzy Logic), Omar(Old Habits), Craig(Old Habits), Belinda(Old Habits), Mowen(Inside Out), 19 Operatives(Inside Out), Glic and Heyman(Double Date), David Fanning(Double Date), Korda(Off Profile), Andrea(Off Profile), the two operatives on blue team (Last Night), Charles Sand(In Between), Ray Leeds(Adrian's Garden), some unknown number of ops getting Sauvage (Adrian's Garden), Carla(End Game), Gotee Twins (End Game), Ames and the other op sent to catch Nikita(End Game), Polluck, Dechy, & Pierce(Looking for Michael), Ferrara(Looking for Michael), Terry De Haan(Opening Night Jitters), Vanhaven(Gates of Hell), Ingram(Imitation of Death), Felix(placed in abeyance on Imitation of Death but no confirmation he was killed), 2 teams of 3 operatives with Nikita are ambushed(Cat and Mouse), Dobbs(Outside the Box), Tatyana(Outside the Box), Scarface who set Nikita up(Outside the Box), Duskis(Slipping Into Darkness), Joe and Beverly (Walk on By), Angela and Mark(Threshold of Pain), Zalman(Beyond the Pale), Female op and about three others killed by Tyco(I Remember Paris), 17 killed, 42 unaccounted for due to the leak(I Remember Paris), Sarah Gerard(Before I Sleep), C team in Jakarta(3rd Party Ripoff), 3 down & 1 lost(3rd Party Ripoff), Wallace(All Good Things), Venchek(All Good Things), one operative on Lemaye snatch(All Good Things), 7 dead more will die from injuries(All Good Things), Victor(3 Eyed Turtle), Dennis Giles (On Borrowed Time), Irina Kerensky(GOOR), 3 Ops at the cryo unit(TANM), 2 Ops disguised as Nikita(VFTG), George’s team and three or four ops in the Helicopter(VFTG), 4 ops killed, one wounded(LHAC), Lisa Birkoff years ago(SFTD), George doppelganger(NOLF), George’s Tech(DACP), the driver of the van and 2 operatives guarding Jerome(HCFF), Section 8(TTBH), Neil(TTBH), 70% of a team - 4 or 5 ops(HHNF), 1 team leader following Vacek(KTPG), Corliss shot(KTPG), 2 teams because Hillinger tips off the Cardinal(LITS), Hillinger’s team of 4(LITS), Hillinger(LITS), 12 ops dead, 4 critical(AFRT), Birkoff(AFRT), Subsection 3(SWTE), George(UTRH), Driver of the van(UTRH), Davenport(UTRH), an entire Alpha Team(UTRH), Olivier and at least 3 of his team(FLYF), 2 ops level one a few months ago(FLYF), Madeleine(FLYF), Kristoff(DVAOA), 1 op dead, 1 inoperable(AGWWT), cyber-Maddy(AGWWT), Oversight Guy(ITTOD), Adrian (ITTOD), Goliak(ITTOD), 2 ops(ATWAS), Deming(ATWAS), Mick Schtoppel(ATWAS), casualties high(TMBTC), All of Alpha team and all but 3 of Beta(TMBTC), Marco O’Brien(TMBTC), Sinclair the pilot(TETMD), 3 ops sacrificed(TETMD), Elena(LNMPU), Operations(LNMPU), Mr. Jones(ATFEP).
