Co-stars recall ‘Rough Nights’ for real
Dead stripper? No problem. What could possibly go wrong?
No one slays a bachelorette weekend quite like the ladies of Rough Night.
In the R-rated summer comedy (in theaters Friday), a soon-to-be-bride (Scarlett Johansson) and her best friends (Jillian Bell, Ilana Glazer, Zoë Kravitz and Kate McKinnon) reunite in Miami for one last blowout, only to accidentally kill a male stripper. It’s the feature directorial debut of Lucia Aniello ( Broad City), who wanted to make a movie “about what happens when your friends from college get back together,” she says. Aniello and co-writer Paul W. Downs were looking for “a pressure cooker of a situation to put them in, so when we thought of (gender swapping) the trope of a dead stripper, those two ideas just felt like they would work.”
USA TODAY sat down with the film’s stars to get their own rough-night recollections.
Q What’s your favorite bachelorette memory?
JOHANSSON: I went to my sister’s bachelorette party and my sister-in-law bought these enormous (penis-shaped) trays to make cakes in. We iced these cakes in a very realistic manner, which I took great pride in. You’d be very surprised how hard it is to get the right flesh tone. ... I was standing outside with this penis cake that was grotesquely realistic — in heels and a short dress, people are walking past, I don’t know if (they) recognize me — and I just couldn’t (understand why we couldn’t hail a cab).
MCKINNON: That’s New York, baby. KRAVITZ: I’ve never been to a bachelorette party.
BELL: Zoë, I will find the perfect man and get married, just so I can invite you.
Q Of your co-stars, who would you trust most to get rid of a dead body?
MCKINNON: None of them. I would call a lawyer. I’m sorry, guys. I love you and you’re very competent and trustworthy people, but it just doesn’t feel like any of our lanes to really deal with that.
BELL: I would probably call the cops. “It was a mistake. Please don’t put me away forever.”
JOHANSSON: Well, I would not be calling either of them, clearly, because you guys have a moral code. So I’m going to (call) Zoë, because I feel like you know someone who knows someone.
GLAZER: Zoë will take care of it, not ask any questions and never talk about it ever again after the fact. KRAVITZ: Talk about what?
Q What’s your advice to someone who’s throwing a bachelorette weekend?
MCKINNON: If it were me — and no one else is — it would be a weekend in a cabin. You could walk to the lake, have a peaceful breakfast on the porch, talk at night by the fire and have maybe half a glass of sauvignon blanc. But do what you want and have fun.
BELL: If you’re going to have a trashy Vegas bachelorette party, go for it hard or go home.
JOHANSSON: Get the girls together to get drunk, dance, do a little afterparty thing, sleep over, do a fun spa day.
GLAZER: Write out your dream bachelorette, narrow it down to the most realistic things ... and do it up. You hope you do it (only) once, but statistically, who knows? KRAVITZ: I don’t believe in marriage.