Trivia / Keeping the Faith

• Casting Gag: Anne Bancroft, the Catholic wife of Jewish Mel Brooks, as a Jewish mother whose relationship with Jake's older brother was severely damaged when he married a Catholic woman.
• Deleted Scene: A couple of scenes did not make the final cut, including one where Brian explains to Anna why Jake's mother is no longer speaking to Ethan, and an extended sequence with the trio visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where Anna falls into the mueseum fountain while talking on her cellphone (parts of this scene did make it into the Good-Times Montage though).
• Dyeing for Your Art: Dark-haired Norton went golden blonde to play Brian, noting that he wanted Brian to have 'a halo- a sun-kissed, God-touched kind of thing'.
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: Blythe Auffarth really does look like a teenaged Jenna Elfman.
• Technology Marches On: In 2000, having one's cell phone at hand at all times was meant to invoke an insane dedication to one's job (this being when cell phones could only make calls). Slightly over a decade later, the ubiquity of smartphones and the general public's addiction to constantly looking at them barely makes it stand out.

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