WILLOUGHBY, Ohio — During the shoot of “Lost & Found in Cleveland,” which took place over 20 days in early 2023 in Northeast Ohio, cast member Martin Sheen pulled aside Keith Gerchak to ask if he was correct: This was the first film by his co-writer and -director Marisa Guterman and him?

Gerchak confirmed that yes, it was, and the veteran actor from movies (“Apocalypse Now”) and television (“The West Wing”) proceeded to tell him that his professional representation advised him to pass on the indie flick. That came as no surprise to Cleveland native Gerchak, who, along with Guterman, his partner in Double G Films, had spent years working to get the project off the ground.

“He said his wife had read the script and said, ‘Martin, you would be crazy not to play this role,’” Gerchak recalls during a recent joint phone interview with Guterman. “And then he read the script and told his agent, ‘I would be crazy not to play it.” The fact was, he said, films like this script don’t get made in Hollywood anymore; it had been a couple of decades since he had seen an ensemble with this kind of depth in humor.”

Movie audiences soon will have the opportunity to see that ensemble — which also includes other familiar folks such as June Squibb, Stacy Keach and Dennis Haysbert — as “Lost & Found in Cleveland” is set to debut on Nov. 7 in hundreds of theaters nationwide.

In the story, various Northeast Ohioans venture to Playhouse Square, where “Lost & Found” — a fictional take on the popular TV series “Antiques Roadshow” — is setting up shop for a few days to film appraisals of cherished items brought to its experts for a look-see.

Gerchak grew up in a house not far from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and, after attending college in New Orleans, returned home and worked for years as an architect — on projects including a renovation of the theaters at Cleveland’s Playhouse Square. Interested in trying his hand at acting, he moved to New York City and then to Los Angeles, where he met music executive-turned-actress and aspiring filmmaker Guterman.

She, meanwhile, grew up in L.A. and treasured memories of watching “Antiques Roadshow” with her father.

“So when I picked up Keith at an audition in L.A. — like, a classic meet-cute — and then he turned me down for a date,” Guterman says, “I said, ‘Would you write something (with me)? A movie? I have this idea about “Antiques Roadshow.”’

When she said she didn’t want to set the story in L.A., he suggested his hometown. She loved the idea.

A decade later — “Filmmaking is a marathon,” Guterman says — he’s still residing in La La Land and she’s living in (wait for it) The Land.

“We swapped!” Guterman says.

“It took us that long to make this movie, and I just fell in love,” she adds. “I fell in love with it instantly, and then I continued to fall in love with it on every visit

“When my husband and I got back to Los Angeles, we both kind of just turned to each other and said, ‘We miss Cleveland,” the Cleveland Heights resident continues. “And then we ended up having our baby here last year.”

It’s difficult to overstress just HOW Cleveland “Lost & Found” is. It’s crammed with references to local businesses, such as Bialy’s Bagels in University Heights, and Keach’s character makes multiple statements about driving in these parts. (Venture to the East Side for dinner? He’s not doing that!)

“That’s part of the fun when the film plays to a local audience,” Guterman says. “I think there is a universality behind the film that appeals to everyone, but people in Northeast Ohio are just gonna smile. There’s a lot for them — there are a lot of Easter eggs like that.”

As for putting together the cast — which also boasts Northeast Ohio native and prominent theater actor Rory O’Malley (“Hamilton”), Liza Weil (“Gilmore Girls”) and “Saturday Night Live” alum Jon Lovitz, as Cleveland’s mayor — that was a work in progress for a long time.

Gerchak says, “We originally had a casting director on what we’ll call ‘Lost & Found in Cleveland 1.0,’ who, like the rest of the industry, said, ‘You’ll never be able to do this — you get who you wrote the role for.”

After a new investor came aboard, a person who suggested they direct the movie themselves, they went for who they wanted, starting with Squibb, an Academy Award nominee for her performance in 2013’s “Nebraska,” for the role of Gladys Sokolowski. (Note the VERY Cleveland surname.)

For Gladys’ husband, Will, a veteran of the Korean War who’s experiencing difficulties later in life, they’d envisioned Ed Asner, but he died in 2021, so they set their sights on Keach, with whom Squibb shared scenes in “Nebraska.” He says each actor would do the film if the other would.

“That was the foundation we built this ensemble on,” he says.

Asked for a favorite moment in the film, Gerchak points to a scene in which Squibb puts on makeup while looking into a mirror.

“She’s 95 years old. She has one take. She never misses a mark, never flubs a line, never misses a beat,” he says. “And the fact she could go from 95 to 20 and then back in a matter of seconds, just through lighting and camera movements and 70 years of acting experience — it was one of the most thrilling, quiet, human, meaningful, spiritual events of my life to watch.”

Guterman, meanwhile, says she was wowed by Squibb’s primary screen partner, Keach.

“I think I can say this: It’s my favorite performance of the film,” she says. “I think a lot of people who have experienced a family member with dementia will recognize the subtlety in it, the bittersweetness of it, and, you know, give him the flowers. He’s just so good in this.”

And then there’s Haysbert (“24”), for whom they say they wrote the role of Marty Anderson, a mailman who dreams of opening a restaurant to honor his late, culinarily gifted mother. He was a last-minute addition, replacing Mykelti Williamson (“Forrest Gump”). Through connections, they got Haysbert the script, and, long story short, he was in Cleveland within days for his wardrobe fitting.

“So he showed up, and he said, ‘Why did I never get the script if (the part) was written for me?’” Gerchak says. “We said, ‘The casting director told us you would never do it.’ And he said, ‘Casting directors don’t know what actors will or will not do. … This is the story that I need to tell and a role that I need to play.’”

The shoot extended as far as Canton, where characters visit the McKinley Presidential Library & Museum, honoring Niles native William McKinley, the 25th U.S. president, and presenting at the time an exhibit exploring a possible Cleveland connection to “The Wizard of Oz.”

For the most part, though, the movie takes place in Cleveland, with shots of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Western Reserve Historical Society’s Cleveland History Center and The Arcade, with lengthier scenes taking place at the West Side Market and in and around Playhouse Square.

“Playhouse Square was a phenomenal partner,” Guterman says, noting the production was able to set up an office there, as well. “It’s just this iconic place in Cleveland, where the whole city gets together, and these buildings have such a rich history. We knew we had to film there, and they were incredibly supportive.”

Cast members came and went during the shoot, although many of them overlapped for the last part, when the scenes around the “Lost & Found” filming at Playhouse Square, and Guterman says a cast member told her a good time was being had regularly at a hotel bar in the city.

“All of the cast was getting together for dinner and drinks every night,” she says. “Would’ve been nice to have been invited, but I do think it shows up on screen.”

(Don’t feel too badly for her. She says child actor Benjamin Steinhauser, who portrays young hero Charlie Toddy and whom they discovered on a children’s baking show, made her his signature cake one weekend.)

“We became a huge family on that — people stayed in touch afterwards,” she says. “It’s almost like a theater company who enjoy the craft and like working together. And it was a time, I think, towards the end of COVID, where people hadn’t been around other people in a while and it was just a nice sense of community. We’re really hoping to repeat that feeling in theaters.”

The movie already has had a meaningful showing in these parts, earlier this year at the Cleveland International Film Festival at Playhouse Square. There, it packed in about 2,500 folks for a screening — a record for a movie at the performing arts complex, according to the Ohio City-based organization that puts on the festival of the same name.

It was special to Gerchak, who also performed in productions there as a child and saw many shows at Playhouse Square, he says.

“The city is the protagonist of the film, we always say, and so that was very meaningful to be able to have that, on a personal level.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t agree more,” Guterman says. “What was so powerful about being there was that everyone in the room really, like, took ownership of the film, and it was just bigger than the two of us. (That) was always the dream for this — that this gets to be part of the Cleveland legacy. You know, ‘A Christmas Story” is a part of that, and we hope ‘Lost & Found in Cleveland’ gets to be the next iteration of that.

“It really felt like people were embracing it in that way.”

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For more information about “Lost & Found in Cleveland” — Rated PG-13 for brief strong language/sexual material — and to buy tickets, visit lostandfoundincleveland.com.

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