Anecdotes

This is Ray Romano's first directing job.

Jacob Ward played basketball in high school, but realized he wasn't good enough to go pro, so he decided to pursue his second passion acting.

This is Jacob Ward's first major role, and he found out he was cast while he was driving for Postmates.

Ray Romano's 3 sons: twins Matt & Greg, and Joe, and his two brothers, Richard and Robert, all have cameos, and Ray's daughter Ally is a co-producer.

During the movie, Ray's character Leo mentions the name Scapulla, which is his real-life wife Anna's maiden name. Ray's movie wife Angela is also in cancer remission, as is Ray's wife Anna.

In a 2023 interview with Screen Rant, Ray Romano spoke about the real-life inspiration for the movie: "The only story I had in mind was I wanted to make it about an Italian family from Queens. I wanted to write what I know. I grew up in an Italian family, but not the traditional family that you see in the movie. That was more like my wife. I married into that family. So for 35 years I've been to all those parties, and the weddings, and all the traditional stuff, and I wanted to do a story about that world. I didn't know exactly what it was going to be about. At the time, as we were writing it, it was my son who was graduating high school, who played on the basketball team, and I got such a thrill going to the games. And being proud of him, and also basking in the attention, if I'm being honest, as pathetic as that is. I don't get enough attention in my real life. I have to get it there. When it ended, I was sad. I knew he wasn't going to play in college, and it was a sad moment that I had to accept. I knew I'd be okay, but I just thought, 'Well, this should be a story about a guy who-this is all he has.' He feels very small in his real life, and is not quite visible in his family, and how does he deal with the fact that this is going to come to an end? So that was the starting point, and then we went from there, and it expanded into what it turned into."