'Bridesmaids' at 10: Director Paul Feig reveals the cringey stripper scene that never made it into t
Believe it or not, it's been a decade since the outlandish comedy "Bridesmaids" opened in theaters and became a trailblazer for woman-led comedies. Starring Kristen Wiig (who cowrote the movie with Annie Mumolo) as Annie, a down-on-her-luck baker trying to plan a wedding for her best friend, Lillian (Maya Rudolph), despite being broke and competing
Believe it or not, it's been a decade since the outlandish comedy "Bridesmaids" opened in theaters and became a trailblazer for woman-led comedies.
Starring Kristen Wiig (who cowrote the movie with Annie Mumolo) as Annie, a down-on-her-luck baker trying to plan a wedding for her best friend, Lillian (Maya Rudolph), despite being broke and competing for bestie status with Lillian's other friend Helen (Rose Byrne), the movie is as entertaining to watch now as when it opened 10 years ago.
From the gross-out dress-fitting scene to Annie's hilarious drunken breakdown on the flight to Las Vegas, the movie hits comedic grand slams for two hours straight.
And then there's Melissa McCarthy's performance as the outlandish Megan, which catapulted her to instant fame and an Oscar nomination.
Director Paul Feig told Insider that he got involved with the film in 2006 after getting a call from friend and producer Judd Apatow, who wanted him to attend a table read for a script Wiig had written.
"Bridesmaids" director Paul Feig. Universal
"I went to it, and the bones were there, but it was a lot different from what ended up onscreen," he said. "And it wasn't even the cast we ended up with, although Melissa McCarthy was part of that read ... just reading a bunch of characters."
"After the table read, I would check in, and finally, a couple years later Judd told me, 'I think it's dead.'"
It would take four years until he got another call from Apatow. Meanwhile, Feig was "bummed out" that his movie career had stalled — instead busying himself by directing commercials. His lowest point, he said, was doing a Macy's ad that starred Donald Trump.
"I went back to my hotel one night and I got a call from my agent that the wedding movie is alive again," he said. "Five minutes later, Judd called me up and I suddenly had the job after being in movie jail for a while."
Speaking with Insider, Feig looked back on the evolution of the movie's most memorable scenes and revealed the recognizable stars who were in the running during casting. He also shed light on the reason we'll likely never get a sequel.
Maya Rudolph, right, was cast because she was already close to Kristen Wiig, as they were both part of the same "Saturday Night Live" cast. Universal
Mindy Kaling, Busy Philipps, and Greta Gerwig all auditioned for parts in the movie
Let's go through some of the casting: Before Maya Rudolph got the role, Mindy Kaling was considered for Lillian, right?
We looked at her. We looked at everybody. I don't think there's any funny woman that didn't come through our doors.
Maya happened organically because Judd and I felt we had to cast someone Kristen is close with. We knew Kristen was already close with Maya because of "Saturday Night Live," so that was one of the easier castings.
Greta Gerwig auditioned. Do you remember for what role?
She may have come in for Helen or for Becca. She was great. The Megan part was the one we had the most candidates for.
People like Rebel Wilson — who ended up in the movie as Annie's roommate, Brynn — and Busy Philipps went out for the role, right?
Yeah, but this was all really late in the process, and though we felt everybody was great, we hadn't found that person who cracked it 100%. It was one of our last casting sessions when Kristen and Annie said, "Oh, you should bring in our friend Melissa."
Melissa McCarthy in "Bridesmaids." Universal
Feig thought Melissa McCarthy was playing the Megan character as a gay woman during her audition
Now at this point, had you remembered Melissa from the table read back in 2006?
No. I did not know Melissa McCarthy existed until she walked in the room for that first audition. Here's the irony: I knew her husband, Ben Falcone. I put him in the same movie I put Kristen in, "Unaccompanied Minors," as a mall Santa.
How was Melissa's audition?
At first I thought she was playing it gay, and I thought that was really great. She was super aggressive to the person reading Annie. So I said, "Let's do an improv where you're trying to get Annie to go out with you."
So she goes into this thing where the two of them are going to meet all these men and eat them alive, and I was like, "Wait! What is this character?"
So she walked out of the room and, as she tells it, she got in her car and thought she completely blew it.
While back in the room you guys are celebrating that you finally found your Megan.
Yeah. We were like, "She's awesome!"
The food-poisoning scene came about to create a consequence to Annie's actions. Universal
In the original script, the dress-shopping scene features Annie having a fantasy about Matt Damon chopping wood — not the food-poisoning debacle
The women going to the dress fitting after having lunch — that's one of the most memorable scenes in the movie. But originally, they don't get food poisoning, right?
Right. Originally there was a scene between the restaurant and the dress shop where they go shopping for wedding gifts. Annie is picking out cheap stuff that she thinks Lillian will like, and Helen is picking out shrimp forks. So we had this bit about tiny shrimp forks. It was really funny. We shot it at a Macy's in the middle of the night. That just got cut because we had too much movie.
After that, we go into the dress shop. Annie goes in the dressing room to try on this really expensive dress, and suddenly she has a fantasy of what her life could be in this dress. It's this romance feel with her running through the woods and Matt Damon is shirtless chopping wood.
What?
Yeah. [Laughs] It was funny.
But during the rewrites, Judd and I felt it needed something more. There needed to be a consequence to Annie's actions, and she needs to be humiliated in front of Helen and the other bridesmaids. So we came up with the food poisoning from being at a s---ty restaurant.
But here's the thing: Everyone remembers all the s---ting and farting and throwing up, but the only reason that scene is funny is because Annie will not admit that she f---ed up. We always felt there needed to be a moment when Annie is just like, "I'm fine. That restaurant was great." Despite her friends s---ting and puking in this very white place.
But to be clear, you never shot the Matt Damon dream sequence.
No, that was only on page. If we shot with Matt Damon, you would see that scene.
In the original script, they do make it to Las Vegas. Universal Pictures
The bridal party was originally supposed to make it to Vegas, where Annie has an encounter with a stripper, but Feig thought it was too much like 'The Hangover'
We had this big scene in a male strip club where they are all drunk and Annie gets pulled onstage by this cowboy stripper. He has her lie down on the dance floor and dances over the top of her, but ball sweat drips into her open mouth as she's screaming.
As we were working on the script, "The Hangover" became huge. "The Hangover" did Vegas so well, all we're going to do is probably be a pale comparison. We did not want to be compared to "The Hangover." We did not want to hear, "This is the female 'Hangover.'" That was our kryptonite.
I remember saying, "They shouldn't get to Vegas. It should all fall apart on the plane." So Annie [who also plays the nervous woman on the plane sitting next to Wiig's character] went and wrote all that up. I was getting emailed the pages while on a location scout about the bit of her seeing a colonial woman on the wing of the plane. I just thought it was hilarious. She really pulled it together.
Then when we shot it, Kristen was just on fire. She ad-libbed a lot of her stuff.
Melissa McCarthy's line about firecrackers being thrown at her head in high school was made up on the spot. Universal
Melissa McCarthy ad-libbed most of the scene in which Megan talks about being bullied in high school
A scene that really sticks out for me is when Megan shows up at Annie's home and talks about being bullied. It's a tone changer, but it also shows Melissa's versatility as an actress.
So originally, there was a collection-agency character who would call Annie all the time because she was spending so much money. That was going to be a running bit. This character, a woman in Mumbai at a call center, would always call, and Annie would always have some funny way to get out of talking to her.
But for this scene, after everything falls apart for Annie, she gets the call from the woman who then gets serious and says, "Don't you dare hang up on me!" And she reads her the riot act on her life.
Once we cast Melissa, we were like, "Why are we throwing this part away to a character we don't know?" So we rewrote it so that Megan comes over. And then she took what we had on the page and ran with it. She added in the stuff like how rich she is, having the clearance codes, firecrackers thrown at her head. That was all stuff she came up with when we shot on the day.
I'm just so glad we did that change because it really brought it all together and created this lovely friendship between the Megan and Annie characters. Because in movies like this, female friendship hadn't been explored this way before.
Paul Feig and Melissa McCarthy. Tiffany Rose/WireImage via Getty Images
Feig and McCarthy drove to a movie theater on opening night when they realized 'Bridesmaids' was going to be a box-office hit
The movie became a game changer in female comedy after opening on May 13, 2011. The box-office success, the Oscar nominations for Kristen and Annie's script and for Melissa's performance — what was it like riding that wave?
It was terrifying all the way up to the movie's opening day.
I always said when making the movie, "This is strike three for me." If I didn't deliver on that movie, they were never going to let me do anything ever again.
Also, because we were known as the all-women comedy, the word around town was like, "If this doesn't work, we're never making a movie like this again."
In the run-up to opening weekend, we were not tracking well at all at the box office. We were told by the studio if the movie doesn't make $20 million opening weekend, it's considered a failure. We were tracking for $13 million. I was not in a happy place.
Then Friday night, my wife and I had Melissa and Ben over for dinner. At dinner, I was getting texted that the projection was $19 million and I was like, "What!?" And then it was $20 million. And then it just kept going up, and we all looked at each other and said, "We have to get to a movie theater right now."
So we all piled in the car and drove to the ArcLight. They let us in and we opened the door and you just heard this wave of laughter. We were at the side watching this sold-out theater watching it.
Feig says he's never seen a 'Bridesmaids' sequel idea that would motivate him to do a Part 2
Have you ever come across a sequel idea that's piqued your interest?
No, not really. Kristen didn't want to do one for a long time. I assume she's still in that headspace. It's her baby, so none of us would do it without her.
The studio wanted a sequel, definitely. But here's the thing about a sequel: The reason this movie worked is because it's meeting a woman at the low point in her life, who's making all these mistakes, and through that experience heals herself.
So to do a sequel effectively, you can't have it be like, "Annie's life is f---ed up again!" That's not going to work. So do you do someone's wedding and crazy things happen? That might be a letdown because you don't have that emotional underpinning that you had in the first movie.
That all said, Kristen and Annie are brilliant. I'm sure they could come up with something, but I don't know. The worst thing in the world is making a sequel that poisons the original. People start saying, "I wish they hadn't made a sequel."