Bridesmaids director reveals truth about comedy movie’s most iconic scene

Kristen Wiig never wanted to include the food-poisoning scene in Bridesmaids. Now director Paul Feig has revealed how it came to be.

Bridesmaids director Paul Feig has set the record straight about the film’s most iconic scene.

If you’ve seen the 2011 comedy, you’ll instantly know the one we’re referring to.

If you haven’t, it involves a bride-to-be and her bridesmaids being struck down with a case of food poisoning while trying on dresses for the wedding. And yes, it gets messy.

It may be the funniest scene in the movie, but it wasn’t exactly a hit with Kristen Wiig, who wrote the film’s script with Annie Mumolo.

We told you it got messy.

NOT IN THE SCRIPT

In 2017, Wiig revealed that she didn’t write the food-poisoning scene and didn’t want it be to included.

“That scene was not our idea and it was not in the original script and we didn’t love it,” Wiig said on the Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast.

The comedian said it was “strongly suggested” to her and Mumolo that they include the graphic scene but they resisted it at first.

“We didn’t love the idea,” she said. “Annie and I were like, ‘We will write the version that we think is funny and that we feel comfortable with’. We didn’t want to see people shi**ing and puking.”

Wiig said she didn’t feel resentful about the scene but told THR, “It’s always going to be the scene that wasn’t in the original that was added for other reasons.”

Rebel Wilson, Kristen Wiig, Paul Feig and Rose Byrne at the Bridesmaids premiere. Picture: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

WIIG’S ORIGINAL IDEA

Feig previously revealed that Wiig and Mumolo had another scene in mind instead of the food-poisoning one, and it featured Matt Damon.

“There was a sequence that Kristen (Wiig) and Annie (Mumolo) had written, which was funny, but it (involved) trying on the dresses, and then Kristen’s character had this fantasy about what would she would do in this dress,” Feig said, according to Variety.

“It was really funny, but it was crazy: It was about running through the woods and suddenly Matt Damon shows up. But tonally, it just didn’t fit in the movie. It would be weird to suddenly go into somebody’s brain because we were trying to be so realistic with it.

“We were wondering what do we do, and so Judd (Apatow, who was the producer) just popped in and said, ‘F**k it, they all get food poisoning’. And I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this is hilarious!’”

Melissa McCarthy, Ellie Kemper, Rose Byrne, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids.

CONVINCING WIIG

In a chat to promote his new movie, Last Christmas, Feig said Wiig didn’t warm to the scene initially but was later fully on-board.

“She was nervous about it at first because here’s Judd Apatow and I, two guys, going, ‘No, it would be really funny if you were all throwing up’. But she embraced it,” Feig said.

“She was the one standing there with this little can of Evian water spray and she would do one line and spray her face and do another line and spray her face. so it just gets sweatier and sweatier.

“She was all in, and what a genius she is,” he added.

Kristen Wiig’s character did her best to pretend she wasn’t sick.

WHY THE SCENE WORKS

Feig broke down the hilarious scene during his chat with news.com.au and revealed why it was so funny.

“We want to tell something in this scene which is: She’s having this rivalry with Rose Byrne who has way more money and everything, so she’s going to take her on by taking them to some cheap restaurant and selling it as a good one,” he said.

“So we said, the funny thing for that would be if she screwed up so badly but she can’t admit that she was wrong. That’s why that scene’s so funny.

“We all remember the pooping in the sink and all that, but it’s because she will not admit she is wrong. In the face of overwhelming evidence, she is sweating, she’s got an almond stuck in her mouth, refuses to throw up, that’s why that scene is so funny, that’s why we wanted to do that.”

Paul Feig’s new movie, Last Christmas, is in cinemas now.