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Filming a movie in San Francisco has its benefits, not the least of which are its photogenic skyline and beautiful bay-side scenery.

But it can also present some challenges. Just ask Ali Wong, who grew up in the city and pushed to shoot her new Netflix rom-com “Always Be My Maybe” in her hometown. She points to a particularly rough night of filming outside the Palace of Fine Arts.

“We shot it in July and it was freezing,” she says about the film in which she stars with Randall Park (“Fresh Off the Boat”). “It was 65 degrees and it felt more like 45 — like we were out on the tundra. We weren’t ready for that.”

And then there was the outdoors night shoot, overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, that director Nahnatchka Khan remembers with dread.

“The fog was so dense and a fog horn was constantly going off, making it hard to hear the actors,” Khan said. “Our sound person just wanted to give up and jump in the ocean. Even the script pages were getting all wet.”

But all involved rose to the challenge and got the job done. “Always Be My Maybe” was released on Netflix Friday, May 31.

Wong, who was raised in Pacific Heights and attended San Francisco University High School, thought it vital to do the film in the city.

“San Francisco is such a big part of me,” she said. “And I’ve always been a fan of TV shows where the city feels like an actual character. San Francisco is very much woven into our story.

That story follows childhood friends Sasha and Marcus (Wong and Park), who have a falling out as teens and don’t speak for 15 years. Sasha moves away from San Francisco and becomes a celebrity chef. It’s not until she returns to her hometown to open a new restaurant, that she runs into her old pal.

Marcus, unlike Sasha, has spent his years off the fast track. He’s now a happily complacent musician still living at home and working for his widowed dad. Though Marcus and Sasha are initially reluctant to reconnect, they soon discover that they still have feelings for one another.

Like their characters, Wong and Park have enjoyed a lengthy friendship.They’ve known each other since their days as students at UCLA. They’ve done improv and standup comedy together, and Wong spent some time writing for “Fresh Off the Boat,” the ABC sitcom in which Park stars. For “Always Be My Maybe,” they collaborated on the script, along with Michael Golamco.

“We’ve wanted to do a rom-com for years and we were very influenced by ‘When Harry Met Sally,'” Park said. “But we wanted to do something differently than the usual meeting of strangers. We wanted the characters to have some history together.”

Although the film’s co-stars have their own history together, Wong admits that she was curious to see if their chemistry would translate to the screen.

“On our first day of shooting, I found myself wondering: ‘Is this going to be movie magic?'” she said.

Park, however, had no doubts.

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How Keanu Reeves ended up in Ali Wong, Randall Park’s romantic comedy ‘Always Be My Maybe’ “It never entered my mind,” he insisted. “We’ve known each other so long. I knew it would click.”

Another aspect of the film that clicked: Keanu Reeves, fresh off his shoot for “John Wick 3,” signed on to do a hilarious cameo in which he plays a cartoonish version of himself — and a rival for Sasha’s affections.

“We sent him the script and he asked for a meeting right away,” said Khan. “He got it. He was totally game.”

So game that, in one scene, he absorbs a punch to the face from Park’s character.

“Hitting him was a thrill,” Park joked. “It was one of the best moments of my professional career.”