Bridesmaids - Kristen Wiig interview
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CO-WRITER and leading lady Kristen Wiig talks about making Bridesmaids as part of a comedy ensemble, getting to go to bed with Mad Men’s Jon Hamm and her own comedy inspirations. She was speaking at a UK press conference for the film.
Q. To quote Shakespeare, the wedding is one of the ultimate arenas for drama and particularly comedy. So, what made you want to get in the ring with the wedding? And did you reference any other movies by way of research?
Kristen Wiig: You know what, when we were writing it we really didn’t think about any of the other movies. I think that could be in your head a little bit and when you’re writing something you’re trying to avoid this thing or ‘is this like that movie’? We didn’t go out of our way to watch any movies. We wanted to keep it like this is what we want to write and hopefully someone would tell us if we wrote something that was. It wasn’t written in reaction to anything.
Q. How much of what we see is drawn from real-life experience?
Kristen Wiig: Thankfully not much that you see in the movie happened to me. There were a few touches in there that my writing partner had had happen to her.
Q. How much did it feel like a collaboration with your fellow co-stars as opposed to being a star vehicle?
Kristen Wiig: Well, I think the collaboration started at the very beginning. We worked with Judd [Apatow] and Greg to write the script, and when Paul [Feig] came along we worked with Paul. There was no telling someone what to do or you have to take this out. It was very collaborative. Paul is extremely generous. And when the cast came along, the same thing – we wanted them all to feel comfortable playing their characters and we encouraged improvising. Annie and I didn’t swear by every word in the script, we wanted people to feel comfortable. We have so many funny improvisers so we wanted to use them.
Q. Who are your comedy heroines or actresses who have inspired you? Also did any of your girlfriends give you a hard time when they learnt you’d be Jon Hamm’s sex friend?
Kristen Wiig: Gosh. I mean I have watched a lot of old movies when I was younger. I was obsessed with Abbot and Costello, Dean Martin, I love Lucille Ball, I love Madeline Kahn, usually it’s a lot of women that have been on Saturday Night Live that have inspired me a lot… all the people I got to work with.
Q: And Jon Hamm. How were the bedroom scenes to film?
Kristen Wiig: That question’s hard to answer because I want to say, ‘oh, it was fun’ but then I sound like a big perv! I think we laughed through the whole thing. Paul made me laugh the way he was shouting out things for him to do to me!
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