The making of The Soloist.

• The producers were Gary Foster and Russ Krasnoff
• Steve Lopez questioned whether they could make a film on his story as it didn't have an ending
• The producers met Nathaniel shortly after meeting Steve Lopez at a lunch meeting, Lopez then took them to LAMP to meet him.
• The real life locations used in the film were the Disney concert hall, LAMP, a street down from skidrow and the actual car tunnel where Nathaniel played.
• Sussanah Grant wanted the film to show an honest representation of how bad the homless situation is.
• The director Joe Wright was apprehensive before making the film as he didn't know much about the USA but felt it would be better to make it from his 'outside' perspective.
• Robert Downey Jr felt that Jamie Foxx's role of Nathaniel had a high degree of difficulty, he had lots of elements to consider: playing the cello, trying to show the mental issue and to try and match the real life Nathaniel Ayers as best he could.
• Joe Wright felt the authentic locations and particularly people could benefit the making of the film as they would give a very real representation of theb homless living in the area, they could also feedback there own thoughts to add to the authentic feel.
• The set designers had 4 weeks on location, a lot of preperation was done in the workshop to save them time for building sets on location.
• The actos in the film became very close while filming and spent a lot of time together, they also spent a lot of time with the people they were trying to portray, particularly Jamie Foxx with Nathaniel Ayers. They got to know all the mannerisms etc. that they needed to make there representations as authentic as possible.
• The producers felt that with the ending they wanted to show that someting like skitzophrenia cannot just be cured, they didn't want it to be a fairytale. Sussanah Grant felt if this had happened some people may have even found it offensive.