BRIDESMAIDS AT 10
PUT ON YOUR BEST DRESS AND GRAB A WEDDING-FAVOUR PUPPY... DIRECTOR PAUL FEIG HAS RSVP’D TO TOTAL FILM’S INVITE TO CELEBRATE THE CREATION OF A GROUNDBREAKING MODERN COMEDY CLASSIC.
Paul Feig on crafting an eminently rewatchable comfort comedy – and a diarrhoea scene for the ages.
Ah, weddings - the romantic proposal, the countdown to the big day, the furious pooing into a sink during a food-poisoning-fuelled dress fitting... While those first two may be steeped in tradition, we have Bridesmaids to thank for the latter. Released in 2011, screenwriters Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo’s game-changing comedy not only emerged as one of the funniest films of the year, it also showed the world just how formidable women in comedy can be. With a packed cast of female stars lead by Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Maya Rudolph and Rose Byrne, and under the direction of Freaks And Geeks creator Paul Feig, this story of two bridesmaids battling for BFF status with the bride-to-be quickly became one of the most quotable feelgood films of recent years. Ten years on, it’s still an experience Feig recalls fondly: “I feel like I was just on set,” he tells Total Film with a smile. “I remember every day like it was yesterday.”
The shoot may feel fresh, but back in the mid-noughties, Feig was busy finishing Christmas comedy Unaccompanied Minors when Freaks And Geeks producer Judd Apatow introduced him to the then-untitled script that would change his career. Having relished writing Freaks’ female geeks, Apatow thought Feig might like to check out an exciting new wedding comedy he had recently got hold of. It followed Annie (Wiig), a lost thirtysomething whose friendship with bestie Lillian (Rudolph) is put to the ultimate test when she’s asked to be her bridesmaid alongside pristine and perfect rival Helen (Byrne). It doesn’t take long for the pair’s grinning one-upmanship to escalate, forcing Annie to desperately try to reclaim her life and best pal before the wedding bells ring.
“Judd called me and said he had a new movie that Kristen had written and he was going to do a table read. I went and really liked it,” says Feig, recalling his first encounter with the project. “It was an early draft and a lot was different, but the thing that impressed me most was seeing this big table of female comic actors.” That chimed with Feig’s own concerns. “Over the years, I had tried to pitch more female-driven TV shows and movies and hadn’t had any luck,” he explains. “I was told by the industry that you can’t do it, that you had to have men to sell internationally and all these ridiculous reasons, but I was just sitting there thinking, ‘Oh my God, here it is.’ How exciting to have so many great, funny women in a movie. It was like catnip to me.”
Following Feig’s initial excitement, scheduling conflicts put the project on hold, but his interest remained piqued and when the stars finally aligned, he was ready to pounce. “At one point around 2009, Judd called and said, ‘I think it’s dead…’ and I thought that was such a drag, because it was such a great opportunity. I sadly let it drop - but then in early 2010, I got a call from my agent saying, ‘That wedding movie is alive again.’ I told them to put my name on the shortlist, because if Judd still wanted me to do it, I’d love to get involved. Five minutes later, the phone rang and it was Judd,” he chuckles. “I was so thrilled to get in there with Annie and Kristen. We started doing a ton of rewrites on the script - but we were in production.”
BRIDAL PARTY
With the director’s seat filled, Feig began gathering his hilarious ensemble cast. “We did months of auditioning,” he says, looking back. “We saw every funny woman and talented actress in town, because we knew we were trying to assemble this supergroup. Everyone who came in was really good so it became a case of finding the types we needed and figuring out who could mix and match.”
Joining Lillian’s bridal party was The Office (US) star Ellie Kemper as the youthfully optimistic Becca and Wendi McLendon-Covey as her marriageweary counterpart Rita. Elsewhere, Rebel Wilson and Matt Lucas helped round out the cast as Annie’s nosey sibling roommates, while Mad Men’s Jon Hamm personified sleaze as the booty-call she couldn’t quite quit. “It was an overwhelming embarrassment of riches,” admits Feig. “There were probably two people for each role maybe even three - but it started to sort itself out.”
Completing the bridesmaid squad was serial scene stealer Megan, played by Melissa McCarthy; a wildly unpredictable character who gave Bridesmaids many of its most quotable lines. According to Feig, the star had such a deep understanding of the role that she was able to transcend dialogue entirely and help Megan find the funny in the tiniest of details. “Melissa had a very distinct vision of how she wanted her character to look,” he says of Megan’s oddball wardrobe. “She loved the idea of pearls and all those shirts she wears - but even down to the little things. I remember her saying, ‘I have to have a carpal tunnel syndrome bandage on my arm. I just think it’d be really funny.’ I was like, ‘That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard,’ because it’s never explained. It’s just always there! It’s always fun to watch an actor discover a character in their wardrobe and see how that affects the performance.”
Rose Byrne used a flipped-around version of this same approach to pin down the character of Annie’s floatingon-air nemesis, Helen. “We had a lot of fun figuring out Helen’s wardrobe,” remembers Feig fondly. “The first time we see her she’s in this giant gown because the most intimidating thing in the world is gorgeous Rose Byrne in an enormous gown floating towards you,” he grins. “You’re Annie, who’s just come from work in her shitty car, and here comes this creature from another planet. It was really fun seeing how Rose embraced the role - she doesn’t try to be funny and is never looking for jokes. She’s so in character as this well-meaning but kind of insufferable person that her natural reactions just make you laugh. It was a joy watching her and Kristen play off each other.”
‘YOU CAN WRITE THE GREATEST SCRIPT IN THE WORLD, BUT THERE’S NO SUBSTITUTE FOR WHEN THINGS ARE HAPPENING ON SET’ PAUL FEIG
TOILET HUMOUR
By inviting his cast to dive deep for comedy gems and allowing them to be flexible with their dialogue, Feig captured a loose style that set Bridesmaids apart from similar material. “You can write the greatest script in the world, but there’s no substitute for when things are happening on set and human beings are interacting,” he reasons. “Wendy is really funny in that she can list off a thousand antidepressants by name, so I would say, ‘Wendy, try one where you’re trying to talk the other women into going on antidepressants,’ and we’d all transcribe it. That level of funny, weird detail actually feels very lifelike and makes comedy funnier, because it’s not amped up. It’s like dropping in on a bunch of weird people. It’s a very organic process of growing the script. The only problem is, we had way too much stuff.”
That said, there was one scene where Feig leaned into his unrestrained approach. After a meal at what turns out to be an unsanitary Brazilian restaurant, the bridal party embark on a dress-fitting at an immaculate fitting room that doesn’t stay immaculate for long. “It was always a dangerous scene,” says Feig, recalling Bridesmaids’ infamous food-poisoning sequence. “Everybody was nervous about it.
I know Kristen was very nervous about it. I’ve seen things like that in movies where everything falls apart; there’s throwing up or gross bodily fluid and suddenly a big wide-angle lens with somebody’s face, cross-eyed, red and sweating. Anytime I watch those scenes I feel so sad for the actors and I never want the audience to have that feeling - but I relate to it because it could happen to me,” he laughs. “You’ve just got to go for it, so we basically shot lots of outrageous stuff.”
The end result was a lot of diarrhoea and vomit all over the cutting-room floor: “We shot a lot of extra stuff that didn’t make it in,” reveals Feig. “We had an alternate ending where they’re all sweating and suddenly you hear this big burp, and Melissa’s standing there with vomit covering the entire front of her body. We also had a scene where Ellie Kemper runs into the bathroom, sees Rita blocking the toilet and runs down the hallway, thinking there’s another bathroom. It’s actually the store owner’s all-white office and she projectile-vomits across the room onto the wedding portrait of her and her husband.” Thankfully, restraint prevailed. “When Melissa’s on the toilet, you never hear her shitting or fart sounds because then you’d feel bad,” chuckles Feig. “The reason Melissa shitting in the sink is funny is not necessarily because she’s shitting in the sink - but that she’s telling somebody else to look away. She’s desperately trying to keep her dignity, even in the worst possible situation.”
Despite test-screening buzz, Feig was unsure whether audiences would turn out to see his long-championed female-fronted studio comedy. To make matters worse, box-office projections weren’t great. “We were really bummed out, and I was lower than low,” admits Feig, remembering the pre-release predictions. “I’d made two movies that’d bombed, so I’d always said that this was my third strike. I was like, ‘That’s it. I guess I’m out of movies.’”
However, during opening night, while Feig was having dinner with McCarthy and her husband, Ben Falcone, box-office numbers started to change. “We drove to the Arclight in Hollywood, and the place was packed. Laughs were going through the roof,” he smiles. A decade in, Bridesmaids has asserted its longevity as one of this centuries most rewatchable comedies. “Over the years, people have really related to it, and it’s become one of those things that you always hope something will become when you do comedy - comfort food,” say Feig. “When people are sad or want cheering up, they put it on. It’s magical and the kind of thing you pray will happen when you make a movie.”