Actor Cory Zacharia was discovered in this film by director Mike Ott and they have gone on to collaborate on six films together.
In a 2020 interview on Sup Doc, Mike Ott spoke about the unexpected effect Cory Zacharia had on the direction of the film: "The focus of the documentary shifts as soon as Cory shows up... Cory's just a fascinating person more than any other human... Also, Rachel Rosen, who runs the San Francisco Film Festival, when I sent it to her, she rejected it. Her criticism was that 'Cory Zacharia ruined your documentary'... Because you kind of lose focus, we don't follow Leigh Harkrider as much, it becomes about Cory falling in love with the make-up girl and smoking weed on set and threatening suicide and all this stuff. I do kind of understand what she means."