Filmaker Magazine: "It wasn’t that long ago larger-than-life press agent Bobby Zarem ruled New York, keeping hot spots like Elaine’s buzzing nightly with his latest antics as he ran interference for colorful clients like Robert Evans and Arnold Schwarzenegger. These days, Zarem’s most closely associated with Denise Rich, whose "comeback" he orchestrated, while his reputation lives on in People I Know, a new movie about 24 hours in the life of a delusional publicist that just wrapped production in New York City. Though Zarem has publicly discounted the similarities, rumor has it he is indeed the model for People’s Eli Wurman. (Like Zarem, Eli is a Southern Jew, Yale grad and Elaine’s regular.) Even a detail freak like Zarem, however, would be hard pressed to complain about the film’s casting: People’s past-his-prime and much-beleagured flack is played by Al Pacino, and he gets a love interest, albeit a platonic one, in Kim Basinger, who plays Eli’s sister-in-law. But Eli hardly has time for love, as city politics, celebrity sex, a murder investigation and his own inner demons send him reeling on the very day he’s mounting a major charity benefit. People I Know is directed by Daniel Algrant, who made a splash with the semi-autobiographical Naked in New York, about a young playwright struggling to break into show business, in 1996. The script’s by real-life playwright Jon Robin Baitz (The Substance of Fire), whose Ten Unknowns brought Donald Sutherland and Julianna Marguiles back to the New York stage at Lincoln Center this winter and moves to Broadway in the fall. Also in the cast are Ryan O’Neal, Tea Leoni (Family Man) and Richard Schiff (West Wing). Likely to steal everyone else’s thunder when People hits the screen, though, is voluptuous model Sophie Dahl, who makes her film debut as a promiscuous starlet Eli’s supposed to put on a plane in the dead of night before the press gets wind of her romp with a famous actor. Pulling all these pieces together is Southfork Pictures, the independent division of Robert Redford’s Wildwood Enterprises. Wildwood generates films like The Legend of Bagger Vance; Southfork has so far produced Ed Burns’s She’s the One and No Looking Back, Tamra Jenkins's The Slums of Beverly Hills, and the as-yet-unreleased How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog, directed by Michael Kalesniko and starring Kenneth Branagh. Southfork exec Leslie Urdang – who’s producing People along with Michael Nozick and Karen Tenkhoff – has a long association with Baitz through their mutual roots in theater group New York Stage and Film; she tried to bring his first original screenplay, Jack and Jill, to the screen in the mid-’90s. Urdang has another Baitz script, romantic comedy Wendy and the Lost Boys, set up at Fox Searchlight, and Southfork moves next to the Che Guevara memoir The Motorcycle Diaries. Pacino’s other recent production, Chinese Coffee, is the first film he’s directed since Richard III and is due for a release later this year from Fox Searchlight. Next up for Pacino – who with companion Beverly D’Angelo is also the proud parent of new twins – is the Alaska-set murder mystery Insomnia, with Memento -director Christopher Nolan at the helm, Hilary Swank co-starring, and Steven Soderbergh executive producing for Warner Bros. Myriad Pictures is shopping the $20 million People I Know for U.S. distribution and can be reached at info@myriadpictures.com".

Upcoming Movies: "Michael Fleming of Variety reports that, as editing continues on this film, decisions are being made about specific scenes and the setting, as Pacino's character, as filmed, has an office in the World Trade Center. Especially interesting, although now it could seem insensitive to the emotions of survivors, is a hallucinatory sequence in which Pacino's publicist character sees the World Trade Center's towers tipped onto their sides. Although Fleming doesn't specify this, my hunch is that there will probably be reshoots to move the character's office elsewhere. The "sideways skyscrapers" sequence sounds fascinating (if you can somehow remove yourself from the World Trade Center disaster), like the shifting towers in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. Although we may never see what that would've looked like, it's certainly a pointer about the sort of visual imagery that director Dan Algrant is going for here".

Myriad Pictures: "While trying to recapture his past glory, a legendary NY publicist is drawn into a dangerous world of illicit drugs, dirty politics and deviant sex when his famous actor-client becomes involved in a scandal that could jeopardize his ambitions of becoming a US Senator".

New York Daily News: "There's obviously no cash problem at the Palm on W. 50th St. The restaurant closed its doors for five days over the past week so it could serve as a location for the Al Pacino-Kim Basinger movie "People I Know." Pacino's caricature, which was already up on the Palm's wall, was kept there for the movie. But his name was changed to J. Eli Werman, his character in the film".

Daily Record: "The film is set for release later this year".

Variety: "NEW YORK (Variety) - Al Pacino is in talks to take the lead role in "People I Know," a picture about a New York publicist. His character bears some resemblance to Bobby Zarem, a film and talent publicist who's been credited with creating the "I Love New York" campaign. Pacino's character was raised in the South, attended Yale, lives on the East Side and frequents Elaine's -- all characteristics shared by Zarem. Zarem said he knows about the project, but denies that it's based on his life. Playwright Jon Robin Baitz ("The Substance of Fire," "Ten Unknowns") wrote the script. In the story, the press agent finds his practice waning and gets wrapped up in a mystery involving New York politics and celebrity. Southfork Pictures, a division of Robert Redford's Wildwood Enterprises, is negotiating financing and distribution for the picture in an effort to begin shooting in Gotham before possible actors' and writers' strikes next summer. The film will be directed by Dan Algrant ("Naked in New York")".

Boston News: "The Academy Award-winning actor was searching for a bathroom to film two scenes of "People I Know," costarring Kim Basinger, Ryan O'Neal, Tea Leoni, and Robert Klein. The movie - in which Pacino plays Eli Wurman, a once-great celebrity publicist struggling to maintain his power - was shot on several locations around New York City earlier this month and is scheduled for release early next year. The offer came in a "Dear Resident" letter slid under the door of my mom's Greenwich Village apartment. The letter said a movie company was looking for a hallway leading straight into a bathroom with the original 1950s fixtures intact. My mom, Mildred, a retired schoolteacher who taught in the South Bronx for 30 years, responded quicker than the cops in "Serpico." What woman is going to tell Pacino - who still looks dashing at 60 - that she doesn't want him to take a shower in her bathroom? Plus, Mom would get a nice location fee. A few days later, set designers arrived and placed a bottle of Mylanta Supreme, torn sheets of Mylanta Gels, Tylenol PM, and a Chivas Regal glass on the window sill behind the toilet. They hung a picture of Yale University, Wurman's alma mater, on the side wall and changed the shower curtain to powder blue. Thirteen trucks, including a 90-foot-long trailer for Pacino, were parked outside. Forty-six people set up lights, taped the windows black, and shut the refrigerator. Three Grossfeld family members took turns sprucing up the porcelain bowl after each use. Then it was quiet on the set. His shirt-tail out and hair tousled, Pacino arrived, speaking in the Southern drawl of his character. A method actor par excellence, Pacino reportedly had been using this accent for months on and off the set. "Take One and roll." The sound of tinkling, moaning, and an occasional swear word could be heard for 40 seconds. Pacino zipped up and staggered down the hallway before turning into the kitchen. "Cut," said director Dan Algrant. "I had to pee like an elephant," said Pacino. "You forgot to flush," somebody said.  "Make it a shorter experience," said Algrant. "And ... action."  They filmed the scene again, taking 35 seconds of toilet time. Pacino, dubbed "Al Cappuccino" for his love of caffeine, was wired. But how many doubles had he gulped? On the next take, we learned Pacino's secret: He had a hot water bottle filled with cranberry juice in his pants because he was supposed to be urinating blood. We knew because he forgot to shut off the valve and the juice dribbled all over mom's oriental rug. Pacino shook his head sadly. "Why do I have the feeling that the woman who owns this apartment is gonna sue me?" he asked. "Oh, no, she's not," said my sister, Sandy, a lawyer, as the crew laughed. "Well, you're one of only a very few then," said Pacino. Pacino finished the scene, then retreated to his trailer. Meanwhile, his double stripped down to a bathing suit and stood in the shower. There was barely enough room in the 5-by-9-foot bathroom to set up the tripod and camera. After 45 minutes, Pacino was back but now had to use the bathroom for real, and that meant someplace other than center stage. The magic of cinema had seized me. I sprung into action, ringing a neighbor's doorbell. A good-hearted senior citizen named Helen answered and appeared stunned. "Where is he?" she asked. "I'm a-comin' Helen," yelled a voice next door. The site of Al Pacino running in slippers and a green bathrobe brought an instant smile to Helen's face. "I'm sooo sorry we have to meet under such unusual circumstances," he said. When he returned, Pacino got into the shower, looking trim in his brown bathing trunks. My mother and sister had already warned the crew: If they mistakenly flushed the toilet while the star was in the shower, "Serpico might get scalded." We were all doing our part for Hollywood. The scene was done in one take. Pacino slurped Chivas in the shower. You could feel his whole character, dark and moody, going down the drain. He seemed to know exactly how many tiles were in the camera viewfinder and he worked from one edge of the scene to the other. "Too much?" somebody asked the director. "That was great," said Algrant, who directed the 1994 comedy "Naked in New York." Pacino walked out of the bathroom with towels wrapped around his hair. He changed in my mother's bedroom. "It's people like you that make it nice to work," he said when he emerged. Pacino, who was raised in the South Bronx, wished mom, whose birthday was around the corner, a happy 80th birthday. "You've got to make it to 100," he told her.  Then he put his arm around mom, called for my sister, and put his arm around her as well. This was our real payoff.  "Let's make a family picture," he said, still in character but smiling broadly for the first time all day".

Motionag: "Myriad Pictures hat mit der Produktion von "People I Know" am 6. Februar 2001 begonnen. Gedreht wurde an unterschiedlichen Locations in New York. In den Hauptrollen sind Oscar-Preisträger Al Pacino ("The Insider", Triologie "Der Pate", "Der Duft der Frauen"), Téa Leoni ("The Family Man", "Deep Impact", "Jurassic Park 3") und Kim Basinger (Oscar für "L.A. Confidential", "Batman", "9 1/2 Wochen") zu sehen. Executive Producer bei diesem Kinofilm, dessen Budget sich auf rund 42 Mio. DM beläuft, sind Robert Redford und Michael Nozik. Story : Al Pacino spielt einen erfahrenen Presseagenten, der ungewollt die intrigante Seite der gesellschaftlich-politischen High Society kennen lernt. Sein berühmter Klient wird in einen Skandal um Sex, politische Macht und Drogen verwickelt. Und das zu einem denkbar ungünstigen Zeitpunkt: Der bekannte Filmstar kandidiert für einen Posten als US-Senator. Status : Post-Produktion".