Combine five raucous women, sprinkle in a little improvisation and the result is a laugh-out-loud comedy, which is perfect for a girls’ night out.
From the producer of “Knocked Up” and “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”, Judd Apatow, comes this delightful comedy about a group of eccentrically charismatic bridesmaids.
Kristen Wiig (TV’s “Saturday Night Live”) leads the cast as Annie, a former high roller whose life keeps coming up short. She’s lost her business, her boyfriend and her live in conditions are less than stellar. Things, however, marginally improve when she discovers her lifetime best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) is engaged. Tasked as the maid of honor, her life unravels even further as she leads Lillian and the group of colorful bridesmaids—Helen (Rose Byrne), Rita (Wendi McLendon-Covey), Becca (Ellie Kemper) and Megan (Melissa McCarthy) on a wild ride down the road to matrimony.
“We rehearsed for weeks before we started shooting and improvised a lot there and just let the cast go to town with what they do best,” says Wiig, who also serves as a co-writer with Annie Mumolo on the movie.
With five actresses and a writer with backgrounds in improvisational training, laughs are one thing that isn’t lacking in ‘Bridesmaids’. There are cat-fights, disagreements, broken hearts and a shopping event at an exclusive bridal shop where all digestive hell breaks loose, but in the end friendship triumphs all.
“Sometimes girls in movies are portrayed as very girlie and perfect and they’re simply the neighbor or the wife,” say Wiig. “There are so many funny actresses out there. To have a movie that has many funny roles for women, instead of just a couple on the side, was gratifying for Annie and me to write and help cast.”
For producer Apatow, who has made a decent living with his identifiable brand of smart comedy, the most fun part of the process was casting the characters.
“The most fun part was to audition every funny woman in town and to come up with a group of people to play these characters. Then we spent a few weeks improvising and letting everybody make the characters their own. That’s when the really funny stuff came out,” Apatow says. “That’s the great thing about working with funny women. Vanity comes second and they are just willing to do whatever makes it real and funny”
