producers for the film, and Howard W. Koch, Jr. was a producer alongside Graff. Drescher pursued her own film project because of the success of her sitcom The Nanny (19931999). Previously, she had only acted in supporting roles, first appearing in the 1977 drama Saturday Night Fever; Joy was her first starring role in a feature film. Worried about the audience's response to her move to film, Drescher modeled Joy after her previous performances; she explained: "It was a specific and strategic choice to not have the audience have to work too hard to accept me as another character. I wanted it to be an easy transition so they wouldn't have to bite off more than they can chew." Regarding audience expectations, director Ken Kwapis said Drescher "has had to overcome a lot of skepticism about her voice, her abilities, [and] the specificity of her comedy". He described the film as "more romantic than comic" and wanted it to introduce Drescher's vulnerability and "romantic side" alongside her "loud and brassy" comedy. Timothy Dalton was announced as part of the cast in July 1996. Although Drescher had initially imagined Kevin Kline as Boris, he was unavailable. Kwapis said that Dalton had "a lot of charm and a very gentle tone". Comedian Laura House considered his casting to be "a testament to the time", writing "that's how popular Fran Drescher was". The A.V. Clubs Will Harris classified The Beautician and the Beast as one of Dalton's lighter and more comedic projects. During a 2014 interview, Dalton shared that he had a positive experience during the filming and praised Drescher for her comic timing. Describing herself as "very protective" of Dalton during the filming, Drescher helped him with the comedy and ensured that he had enough funny lines. The Beautician and the Beast was filmed in Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills, California, Prague, and Sychrov Castle in the Czech Republic. The scenes in the Czech Republic were shot in the fall of 1996; during filming, Drescher hired a chef from Tuscany to prepare meals for her. Peter Lyons Collister handled the cinematography, and Jon Poll was the editor. Kwapis recruited dialect coach Francie Brown to construct the fictional language Slovetzian; it contains influences from Czech, Russian, and Hungarian. The Beautician and the Beast was completed on a budget of $16 million. Its final cut is 107 minutes long. Themes Fran Drescher attributed the