before the closing credits, is Harry and Sally. Cast Billy Crystal as Harry Burns Meg Ryan as Sally Albright Carrie Fisher as Marie Bruno Kirby as Jess Steven Ford as Joe Lisa Jane Persky as Alice Michelle Nicastro as Amanda Reese Kevin Rooney as Ira Stone Harley Kozak as Helen Hillson Estelle Reiner as Female Customer Production In 1984, director Rob Reiner, producer Andy Scheinman and writer Nora Ephron met over lunch at the Russian Tea Room in New York City to develop a project. Reiner pitched an idea for a film that Ephron rejected. The second meeting transformed into a long discussion about Reiner and Scheinman's lives as single men. Reiner remembers, "I was in the middle of my single life. I'd been divorced for a while. I'd been out a number of times, all these disastrous, confusing relationships one after another." The next time they all met, Reiner said that he had always wanted to do a film about two people who become friends and do not have sex because they know it will ruin their relationship but have sex anyway. Ephron liked the idea, and Reiner acquired a deal at a studio. For materials, Ephron interviewed Reiner and Scheinman about their lives, creating the basis for Harry. Reiner was constantly depressed and pessimistic yet funny. Ephron also got bits of dialogue from these interviews. Sally was based on Ephron and some of her friends. She worked on several drafts over the years while Reiner made Stand By Me and The Princess Bride. Billy Crystal "experienced vicariously" Reiner's (his best friend at the time) return to single life after divorcing comedian/filmmaker Penny Marshall and in the process was unconsciously doing research for the role of Harry. Tom Hanks, Richard Dreyfuss, Michael Keaton and Albert Brooks were all offered the role of Harry Burns but all of them turned it down, with Brooks feeling the movie was too reminiscent of Woody Allen's work. During the screenwriting process when Ephron did not feel like writing, she would interview people who worked for the production company. Some of the interviews appeared in the film as the interludes between certain scenes featuring couples talking about how they met, although the material was rewritten and reshot with actors. Ephron supplied the structure of the film with much of the dialogue based on the real-life friendship between Reiner and Crystal. For example, in the