<Li> Michelle Nicastro as Amanda Reese </Li> <Li> Kevin Rooney as Ira Stone </Li> <Li> Harley Kozak as Helen Hillson </Li> <P> In 1984, director Rob Reiner, producer Andy Scheinman and writer Nora Ephron met over lunch at the Russian Tea Room in New York City to develop a project . Reiner pitched an idea for a film that Ephron rejected . The second meeting transformed into a long discussion about Reiner and Scheinman's lives as single men . Reiner remembers, "I was in the middle of my single life . I'd been divorced for a while . I'd been out a number of times, all these disastrous, confusing relationships one after another ." The next time they all met, Reiner said that he had always wanted to do a film about two people who become friends and do not have sex because they know it will ruin their relationship but have sex anyway . Ephron liked the idea, and Reiner acquired a deal at a studio . </P>

Who played helen in when harry met sally