Unscripted Moments That Were Kept In Bridesmaids
#7: Engagement Party
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When you have women as funny and talented as Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Ellie Kemper, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Maya Rudolph and Rebel Wilson in your movie, you better be open to improv. And thankfully, director Paul Feig was. While every scene in the film was scripted, they would get one take as written and then often do another, allowing the women to improvise. And the very funny engagement party is one such scene. Looking at a draft of the script dated 2009, Ellie Kemper and her husband finishing each other’s sentences isn’t there. And while Melissa McCarthy does fall off a cruise ship in the script, the whole story about how it happened looks to have been one, of many, great McCarthy improvs.
#6: The Sequence Outside of the Airplane Bathroom
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We should tell you right now that Melissa McCarthy is on this list a lot. This was the performance that took her to the next level of stardom, and as it turns out, much of it had to do with her being allowed to improvise. Like with the scene where her character, Megan, is flirting with air marshall Jon outside the airplane bathroom. According to Ben Falcone - who not only plays Jon, but is also the actress’ real-life husband - all McCarthy had to say was, “Let's go to the restroom—and not rest” and after that she was free to do her thing. And she sure did.
#5: The iPod Nano Line
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For this one, we go back to the airplane where, according to Ben Falcone, much was “wildly improvised,” including McCarthy’s line about the iPod Nano. Her character, Megan, is convinced that Falcone’s character is an air marshall and that he has his gun on him somewhere. Maybe even “between [his] cheeks.” We aren’t sure how much of this entire interaction was scripted, but we do know that the bit about the Nano going up someone's butt was all improvised. You can even see Falcone trying to hold it together and not laugh at all the great lines she was throwing at him.
#4: Rose Byrne Speaking Thai
Prior to this film, Rose Byrne wasn’t someone you’d think of when it comes to comedy and improv, given that she was better known for her roles in the TV show “Damages” and movies like “Troy.” But on the “Bridesmaids” set, she proved she could hang with the best of them when she improvised part of her speech at the engagement party and said a few words in Thai. Well, actually she just made up the words. But the producers really dug the improv so they had her learn some actual Thai words for her to say.
#3: Firecrackers
So, as it turns out, not only was much of McCarthy’s “pity party” speech improvised, it initially wasn’t even part of the movie. In the original script, Annie’s reckoning came from a collections agency call center agent in Mumbai who, after spending much of the movie getting the run-around, finally gives it to Annie straight. However, once McCarthy was on board they rewrote the scene to have the straight talk come from Megan. And McCarthy took the script and, per usual, made it her own. She improvised the whole firecracker thing, the stuff about being wealthy and her high security clearance.
#2: “Climb That Like a Tree”
For this one, let's go back to Melissa McCarthy’s first scene in the movie. You know, the one where she made up that story about how she fell off the cruise ship and a dolphin looked into her soul. Well, at the end of that scene, she hilariously mistakes a man standing next to Annie as Annie’s date. When she finds out he isn’t with her, she’s very happy he’s single because she has plans for him. Those plans were not in the script, though. As she told her friend Octavia Spencer, when the man crossed in front of her, she thought…
#1: Kristen Wiig on the Plane
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As it turns out Melissa McCarthy wasn't the only one making stuff up in the classic airplane scene. Kristen Wiig also showed off her awesome improvisational skills on the plane, particularly after her character got high and drunk. In fact, director Paul Feig told Vanity Fair that he shot the drunk scenes about seven or eight times because he never knew what Wiig was going to do each time, and he loved it. While some of it was scripted, much of it was just Kristen doing her thing. And that includes the hysterical "I'm ready to Party" song and dance moment. Also, Feig stated that her aggressive, whining attitude towards Helen right after that "came out of nowhere" as well.
