Upon Marshall's request, Andrews suggested that the fictional country of Genovia be famous for its pears, after which point the set was decorated with artificial pears and pear-shaped statues. Marshall worked with Larry Miller, who portrays Mia's hair stylist Paolo, to improvise humour moments, such as shrieking upon seeing Mia for the first time and drawing his styling tools from his pockets as though they are pistols. Wendkos wrote that Miller's Paolo was deliberately written as an "over-the-top" character. "Not you, I don't even know you", one of Matarazzo's most oft-quoted lines which she utters to someone while running down the street, was entirely improvised at the suggestion of Chase. Joe recites "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent" to Mia, a famous quote originally by former United States First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Mia recites one of Juliet's soliloquies from William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", a deliberate reference to the fact that Hathaway shares her full name with Shakespeare's wife. Houston conceived the scene in which Mia smears her ice cream cone on Lana's cheerleader uniform. Wendkos spent more effort revising Mia's makeover sequence than any other scene in the filming, wanting to achieve a "clearer progression from the ugly duckling to the ingenue", as per Marshall's request.