Bridesmaidshad the bones of a most conventional rom-com: The plot moves from engagement to wedding.
Girl gets the guy.
Cheesy dance number closes things out.
coffin as it grossed nearly $300 million worldwide and scored two Oscar nominations.
THE CASTING
WENDI MCLENDON-COVEY (Rita):I knew Kristen and Annie from the Groundlings.
They told me they wrote a movie and the first table read was 2007.
Not too many people were there.
Melissa was there, a few others.
MELISSA MCCARTHY (Megan):I definitely didn’t read for Megan.
And it was a very different script [from] what we ended up with.
FEIG:I checked in with Judd about it….
He made it sound like he might be gone.
Then out of the blue in 2010, I found out the project was actually going to move forward.
I was on it.
MCLENDON-COVEY:When I actually got the job [in 2010]?
MAYA RUDOLPH (Lillian):Kristen and I were actual friends.
I came in and did a chemistry read with her, late in the process.
It was very clear to me that there was a desire to see a real relationship on-screen.
FEIG:I cast Maya because I wanted to cast someone who was actually Kristen’s best friend.
It’s like, clearly, they’ve been friends forever.
ELLIE KEMPER (Becca):I actually read for the part [of Megan].
FEIG:The only comedy [Rose Byrne] had done before that wasGet Him to the Greek.
In New York, we got her and Kristen to audition together.
Just seeing the two of them together was so funny because they were so different.
FEIG:We mixed and matched a lot.
The Megan role was one of the last ones we cast.
FEIG:[Melissa] came in and auditioned in the way that she played it in the movie.
I hadn’t seen it done that way.
It took me about 15 seconds to realize it was funny….
I was like, “This is weird!”
Then: “Oh my God.”
MCCARTHY: I was like, “What have I done?
I went too weird!”
THE PREP
KEMPER:We each had lunch with Paul, to talk about our character.
I brought all these emails from brides I’d been bridesmaids for.
Brides can be a little over the top, so I brought some paper evidence.
[Laughs] We built out the character from there.
FEIG:We did improv sessions [in rehearsal].
We leaned into that for her character.
It all sort of bled together.
MCCARTHY:In the rehearsal process, you really got to know everyone’s characters before you’re shooting.
Even if you didn’t use the specific information, you’d start to build this backstory.
We had this history as the characters.
I just remember thinking, “If this is what making movies is, this is mind-blowing.”
There was a stenographer who was typing everything that we were improvising.
Then we’d come back and there’d be new pages.
It was hotter than hell.
So we stripped out all of these really hilarious jokes.
And then the aggression came out when they [were] actually doing the toasts.
One would come in, take the mic from the other.
That’s probably the time I laughed the hardest on set.
MCCARTHY: [Laughing] It went onforever.
I just kept laughing.
THE FOOD POISONING SCENE
RUDOLPH:We were all downtown.
FEIG:We shot it over two days.
KEMPER:At one point I went outside to practice projectile vomiting to the wall.
Paul was out there and he was like coaching me, like,That was great Ellie!
Can you get it a little higher?
FEIG:We didn’t want to wallow in grossness.
I remember feeling like,I got it!I hit it with my vomit.
I was so proud.
RUDOLPH:My stunt person was Angelina Jolie’s stunt-person.
I was like, “Stunt forwhat?
What are we doing here, guys?”
I had knee-pads on.
It definitely wasn’t comfortable.
We did it pretty late in the process.
Annie and Kristen sent me 16 pages.
I remember sitting there [reading], laughing so hard….
I was like, this is way funnier than anything we would’ve done in Vegas.
KEMPER:Everyone was improvising.
I kept filming it because it was just so fun to watch.
MCCARTHY:She was like a machine.
MCLENDON-COVEY:Ellie and I had our own thing going on while everybody else was filming.
We were just bullshitting back and forth.
MCLENDON-COVEY:Some of the stuff [Ellie] was saying makes me laugh to this day.
It wasn’t appropriate.
Then you’d also hear Paul laughing at full volume three feet away in the corner.
He’s laughing, Rose is laughing.
You’re shoved onto this plane that’s sitting on the middle of some soundstage.
I just loved watching everybody’s madness.
KEMPER:We literally had front-row seats: We’re sitting in chairs!
MCCARTHY:There was one joke I can’t remember now.
I had to get through the order of it for the joke to make sense.
We tried so many times to do it.
Ben, do you remember what it was?
I’m like, “I don’t know.”
And you’re like, “I’ve got another one like it.
I can reach back above my head and comb my own goddamned hair.”
That’s when I lost it.
SAYING GOODBYE
FEIG:I remember Melissa’s last day: We were in Downtown LA….
It was super sad.
She was the first one leaving.
She was crying, we were all crying it was so emotional because we got so close.
MCLENDON-COVEY:I cried afterwards.
It was such a fun experience.
I didn’t want it to end.
I loved those girls.
MCLENDON-COVEY:People started labeling itThe Hangoverfor women and it was like… no, it’s not.
But the feeling was we were all laughing at each other and we were all supporting each other.
That’s kind of all that mattered.
That is sort of the dream.
MCCARTHY:It was one of the most fun experiences I have ever had.
KEMPER:It felt like you were at camp.
You were making a movie with your friends.
