1. It’s All in the Details
Ephron was notoriously a very specific director, with a love for little details to add authenticity, especially when it came to establishing New York City, one of the great loves of her life.
During the infamous “that caviar is a garnish!” face-off between Joe and Kathleen, Ephron, a foodie herself, insisted on a lavish spread, and even was upset that the avocados weren’t Hass avocados. “Oh, that is so sad,” script supervisor Dianne Dreyer recalled the director saying. (That caviar garnish bit was not in the original script, by the way, with Ephron adding it in on set because she found the word “garnish” funny. She was right.)
She even made sure to have the same extras in the background of various scenes to make the Upper West Side feel like a little community; she wanted it to feel really lived-in.
“The extra who is playing the florist [in the beginning of the film] is pregnant,” Ephron revealed on the DVD commentary. “We put a little pad in her tummy. And one of the things you will see later in the movie is when Meg is buying flowers at that florist, there’s a little sign in the window that says, ‘It’s a girl.'”
