Writer and director Sir Anthony Hopkins chose a moldy, mildewy storage room at the Redondo Beach Elks Lodge, California to film his bedroom dream sequence, because he didn't have to dress the walls to look moldy and mildewy. He also used the Lodge Room as a soundstage for a television news insert for a later bar scene, and filmed the front of the Lodge as an emergency room entrance for his ambulance rush sequence. He signed autographs, posed for pictures, and used one of the Lodge members, and his wife in the exterior scene.
Anthony Hopkins and Jeffrey Tambor previously appeared in Meet Joe Black (1998) and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) (Hopkins narrates the film).
The film cast includes one Oscar winner: Anthony Hopkins; and three Oscar nominees: Michael Clarke Duncan, Michael Lerner, and Kevin McCarthy.