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Never the bride, but always the bridesmaid. Applied to Hollywood, this saying would perfectly fit the career of Kristen Wiig. Although she has been in 14 movies in five years, Wiig has always played the role of co-star. However, it is now time for the Saturday Night Live star player to prove her box office clout in her first lead role with Bridesmaids. She also co-wrote and co-produced the film, which is sealed with the Judd Apatow raunchy stamp of approval. Bridesmaids is Wiig’s first chance to show that she can command audiences on the silver screen as well as on their TV sets.

Wiig plays Annie, a hapless, jobless, and man-less, baker who views being selected as her best friend’s (SNL alum Maya Rudolph) maid of honor as an opportunity to turn her life around. Yet, Annie keeps hitting new lows as the personality-clashing group of bridesmaids sends her friendship and sanity into a tailspin.

In Boston to promote the film, Wiig speaks in a roundtable interview with BOP alongside co-star Wendi McLendon-Covey. Recognized from her lead role on Reno 911!, McLendon-Covey plays bridesmaid Rita, a harried and vulgar mother of two.
In the interview, the two co-stars talk about wedding movies, working on a set with a predominantly female cast, improv, and Kristen Wiig’s career highlight.

You both have great ad-libbing skills, so how much of the movie is scripted?

Wendi McLendon-Covey: We filmed all of the scenes as scripted, but then there were some scenes that lent themselves to more improv; so we made sure we got the coverage of the scripted version and then they would just let us go. Definitely at the opening engagement party scene where you see all of us for the first time, there was lots of improv for that.

Kristen Wiig: We are being introduced to our characters, so you know, we had done a lot of rehearsal and they had an opportunity to figure out who their characters were, where they were from. So when we meet them at the engagement party, Paul [Feig] was just so great saying, “Just talk.” And it was so much fun to watch all the ladies do their stuff.

The funny thing about the party is that between the whole group of bridesmaids, you have every type of personality.

KW: I mean, we definitely wanted to have each person be different, but not in the way in that you would question how all of these people were in the same room together. Also, after meeting the girls and having them do a lot of improv in the auditions and rehearsal, we rehearsed for a couple weeks…

WMC: I’d say six weeks. And the audition material we were given was not in the film, so we all read the same scenes. It was just who’s gonna do it what way. And then we would make their characters up depending on what their take was on the material.

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