A Bunch of Amateurs

Burt Reynolds reportedly had significant difficulty learning his lines (especially the Shakespeare) throughout shooting. Several scenes from "King Lear" needed cue cards in the wings, though despite this, Reynolds was less than accurate much of the time. Imelda Staunton on more than one occasion made her frustration with this quite vocally known, and some of the lines used in the movie differ quite greatly from the original play-scripts.

In a radio interview broadcast May 20, 2013 on BBC Radio 2 in the United Kingdon, Samantha Bond described some of the behind-the-scenes tensions during the making of this movie. She stated that Burt Reynolds' "high maintenance" behavior on-set bore some resemblance to the actions of his character. This behavior, Bond stated, included locking himself in his trailer and having to be coaxed out by the director or producer, not making much of an effort to mix with or get to know many of the rest of the cast (Samantha Bond excepted), and not learning his lines.

The cast of "King Lear" seen at the curtain call in this movie actually performed two productions for charity, parts of which were filmed and used in the final cut. Several stage actors and actresses cast for the charity production can be seen in the background as extras during certain scenes of the in-film performance, and when the final bow is taken.

Throughout his career, Burt Reynolds made numerous movies that examine filmmaking and this movie is one of them. The movies include Fade In (1973) (location filming and westerns); Silent Movie (1976) and Nickelodeon (1976) (silent movies); Best Friends (1982) (scriptwriting and Hollywood); Hooper (1978) (stuntwork and Hollywood); The Player (1992) (Hollywood); Boogie Nights (1997) (adult movies); The Last Producer (2000) (producers and Hollywood); The Hollywood Sign (2001) and A Bunch of Amateurs (2008) (actors and Hollywood).

As shown on the top of a letter, the address of Jefferson Steel's Hollywood agent Charlie Rosenberg (Charles Durning) is given as 1453 Wanamaker Street, Los Angeles, CA 90228 USA. This street name can be considered a reference to actor and Director Sam Wanamaker, who worked with Burt Reynolds (who played Detective Lieutenant John Hawk) on episodes of Hawk (1966), as well as other television work. Further, using Wanamaker's name in this address also ties Reynolds together with Shakespeare, in that Wanamaker was the Founder of the International Globe Theatre Centre, the project that funded, researched, and built the reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre that now operates on the Thames in Bankside, London, not far from where the actual remains of the Globe were found just after Wanamaker's construction had broken ground. It was Wanamaker's life's passion to create a reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe that would be a fully operational theatre, as well (although, after raising the funding from many fellow actors, actresses, directors, and producers, and then bringing together the historians and experts to design it, he died in 1993, four years before its grand opening).