Bridesmaids
Director Paul Feig takes us behind the scenes of his raunchy new comedy starring Kristen Wiig.
“I was always such an enormous fan of Kristen. People engage with her immediately. We shot all of this really funny stuff where Jon Hamm’s character was an asshole to her. Then we did the first test screening and the room was absolutely silent. We realized it was because the audience was so behind Kristen they’d tense up if anyone was mean to her. So we had to cut it.”—Paul Feig
“Before she did ‘Get Him to the Greek,’ I’d never seen Rose Byrne in a comedy, but she turned out to be one of the best improvisers I’ve ever met.”
“All of the bridesmaids are at different phases in their relationships. We wanted Ellie Kemper’s character, Becca, to be the optimistic newlywed who thinks the whole world should be in love.”
“Here are the bridesmaids and Maya Rudolph, the bride. Off set, when these women got going, it was so funny—I didn’t even try to keep up. Half the time I told them, ‘okay do those jokes on camera now.'”
“I always wear a suit and tie on set. Marcello Mastroianni is my biggest inspiration. That’s how a director should look. To me, it’s a sign of respect—I’m working with fantastic actresses. I don’t want to be the guy in sweatpants.”
“Jill Clayburgh played the mother of Kristen’s character, a bitter divorcee. Sadly she died shortly after the shoot. I’m very proud that she was in the movie, but very sad that it was the last thing she got to do.”
“The role of Rita was written with Mendi McLendon-Covey in mind. She’s the tired mother, disillusioned with marriage, despeartely looking for any kind of kicks in the bachelorette world—a fun contrast to Becca.”
