The film was almost accepted in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, but Noah Baumbach refused to cut fifteen minutes as they requested, and the film was ultimately rejected.
According to Noah Baumbach at the Lincoln Center anniversary screening, there was another actor scheduled to play the lead role who dropped out at the last minute, prompting Tri-mark to tell him to 'find a star' or they'd cancel the movie. Baumbach quickly faxed his good friend Eric Stolz who was filming Rob Roy in Scotland, and got him to sign on to the movie even though there was no character written for him. They created the character of Chet together, doing a lot of improvisation, in particular the famous 'book club' scene.
Grover: You know, even though all 618 of us were wearing caps and gowns out there today, I couldn't help but think it was a coincidence that we were both wearing black.