< Home / Interview / Critic / Bio / My articles in Japanese >

Bridesmaids

Coverage by Nobuhiro Hosoki

Story : Picked as her best friend's maid of honor, lovelorn and broke Annie looks to bluff her way through the expensive and bizarre rituals with an oddball group of bridesmaids.

 

Opened May 13, 2011

Runtime:2 hr. 5 min.

 

Q&A with Director Paul Feig

 

(Q) : What was your first contact with Judd Apatow?
 
(Paul Feig): Judd and I were friends since he was about 17 years old. We were all standup comedians together working the clubs and had a group of friends. We would hang out at this place called the Ranch, which was this really crappy house in the San Fernando Valley, the low rent Algonquin Round Table, Algonquin Dirty Table. But like Steve Higgins, who runs “Saturday Night Live” now, Dana Gould, and lots of people who are really established in the comedy world now, we were all performers then.

But Judd and I always bonded over we always thought stuff was funny that nobody else thought was funny and so we just had this special relationship and it just kind of carried over for a long time. Then he got more powerful and I was acting for a long time and he put me in a movie that he was producing called “Heavy Weights,” written and directed by Steve Brill and that was fun. We just always stayed in contact. He would always send me scripts when he had a project coming up to get notes and I’d go to table reads.

I did a movie, an ultra low budget movie called “Life Sold Separately,” and he saw it and like it so much that he’d just made a deal with DreamWorks TV, he was coming out of Larry Sanders’ show, and said “Hey, if you ever have a show, a script or an idea that you think would be right for us let me know.” I waited a year because I wanted to get the right thing, and then I wrote “Freaks and Geeks” as a spec script and just sent it to him because I know he have the same sensibility. And he liked it and bought it immediately and next thing you knew we were on the air. It was a very fast process.
 
(Q) : Do you have a similar working process in terms of the way you put casts together and that kind of thing?
 
(Paul Feig): Yeah, we’re in total agreement in the way we like to do stuff. We like to open the door wide, we don’t have any kind of you can’t come in if you look like this or you look like that, it’s just we’re casting; bring us the funniest people. We have the greatest casting director I know, who is Allison Jones. When I was an actor she used to cast me and then I repaid the favor by hiring her. No. She was lucky to be not having me coming in acting anymore. And she just would bring in the best people for the roles and find us oddballs and all that kind of thing and we would throw the doors wide open and have them do some improv.

Whenever I audition I like to write, as opposed to having them do the scenes we’ll just write like a speech or a long dialog so that I can really showcase and see what the people are doing as opposed to them just sticking to the dialog in the script. So you get to know their personalities better that way and that’s how you find people. Then once you find somebody you like then you go in and you rewrite the script to accommodate their personality.

You’d rather have somebody come in and be great and then you go “Oh that person’s so great. Let’s cast them,” as opposed to going “Oh they’re so great but they’re not quite what I envisioned for this so we’ll let them go.” If somebody’s great we’re going to grab them and hang on to them and turn the project to fit that.
 
(Q) : One of the things that I find fascinating is that you kind of shifted from writing a lot to directing a lot and I wonder what precipitated that.
 
(Paul Feig) : “Freaks” at the time was considered kind of a failure because it was so low rated, we got canceled.
 
(Q) : The show has an incredibly devoted following. So much so that when it went to dvd there was a petition.
 
(Paul Feig) : Yeah, but it took four years to get the dvd out because of music rights clearance and all this.
 
(Q) : But you got all the music from the show with a couple of exceptions. There’s that Neil Young song.
 
(Paul Feig) : That’s the only one because Neil Young wouldn’t give us his permission to use it, which was a bummer because he approved it originally. But he changed his mind. That was actually an interesting things because right after we got canceled a lot of companies wanted to put out the dvd but they didn’t want to pay the money so they wanted to replace the music with generic music. You can’t. It’s literally like stripping out the characters.
 
(Q) : And also the music was key for a lot of emotional points. The emotional narrative was as key to “Freaks and Geeks” as the story points were.
 
(Paul Feig) : Yeah, we would write to songs, we’d write for the specific songs as opposed to kind of glue them on after. So it’s just very integral to it. I kept writing after that and everybody kind of wanted a show for me, “I want your voice,” and then I’d bring them shows and like “Oh, not that voice.” I kept having things and they kept not buying. I was in development for a number of years and I never got a pilot made. They would buy it and they’d make it so that had to pay me a penalty if they didn’t do and they paid the penalty.

It was very bizarre. So I just started to burn out and at the same time it was like I want to do something. And so that was when Victor Hsu, who was our line producer on “Freaks and Geeks” was doing “Arrested Development,” and he called me up and said “Hey, they’d like you to direct over here,” and I was like “I love that show.”

It was still in the first season and so I went over and started doing that and then things just started opening up, really good shows started popping up like “The Office.” I just kind of started doing it because it was fun and they were shows that since they knew me as a writer they were giving me more input than they might a normal tv director. Not that I did a lot of writing on it, they were writing such great stuff, but then I could just kind of put my stamp on it.
 
(Q) : It was also a strength of yours in working with an ensemble improv casts.
 
(Paul Feig) : Yeah, I love it. I love improv, I come from an improv background, so I find that’s where the magic happens with comedy. Sometimes it gets a little stale or it feels written. I hate when things feel written, and there’s something great about when something happens for the first time between funny people. It’s like you can never recapture that, so whenever I shoot anything we always cross shoot it so I’m shooting you and me at the same time when we’re talking as opposed to shooting you first and then turning around and shooting me and recreating a scene.

Because we like to throw curveballs and we have people that are good at improv. The actors always make fun of me because I’m always saying “Dealer’s choice, just surprise me. Do whatever you want.” Then that’ll spur something and I’ll have an idea like “Oh try this joke,” or then somebody else on the set will chime in or we’ll have a writer with us and they’ll do it.

It just keeps it very vibrant so you get these things that are very much in the moment and they feel like you’re listening in and you’re sitting at dinner with funny people being funny. I love sitting with funny people and love joking around with people and hanging around with really smart comedians. And just to recreate that feeling on the big screen just gives you a funnier, more pleasant experience I feel.
 
(Q) : How much of “Bridesmaids” was on the page versus being improvised?
 
(Paul Feig) : A lot of the dialog in this movie is improvised, but we had a very, very set template that we went off of. Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo wrote the script and they wrote a really great script, and then Judd and I came in and worked out the story with them and getting that right. We would all take cracks at different things just to make sure the story was great. I find the problem with a lot of comedies is they try to go for the jokes and the funny setups first and they don’t get the bottom story, the emotional through line of the characters right first.

So then they always kind of insert that stuff later and that’s why some comedies feel like here’s a funny scene, okay here’s a sad scene. We like to mix it all up but you can only do that if you know the exact roadmap that you have and have those arcs correct and really work the story and work it hard. But then once you do that you get really funny dialog, you work the jokes in as much as you can, we have the actors come in and they’ll rehearse and do improvs of scenes and gives us ideas and kind of help us flesh out the character to make it more real for them, and then we take that stuff and keep putting it in.

So by the time we go into production we have a really good script with really funny dialog, but then that’s just a jumping off point for us. We’ll shoot the dialog a few times and then it’s like let’s start playing and you try this and then I’ll get an idea and we have some writers with us a lot of times and I’ll be behind the monitor, they’re handing notes in into me with jokes on it, I’ll just call them out to the actors. Improv actors are great because they just know you’re going to throw it in.

So it’s not even like “Hey, could you try a line?” I just say a topic to them or something or “Get meaner with it” or whatever it is and then they just know, they go right into it without thinking and that’s when you get this very fresh stuff. And if you’re working with really funny people they just come up with amazing things. So by the time you finish a take you’ve got a ton of jokes that you could possibly use for each scene.

(Q) : Let’s take a look at a scene now that illustrates what you’re talking about.
 
(Paul Feig) :  The whole movie hinges on this friendship between the two of them because it starts to fall apart through the movie. And this is before they know that she’s engaged or anything. What we needed this scene to do is to feel the friendship to between them, where we just feel like they’ve known each other forever and really rely on each other and that Maya’s character always is supporting Annie, is always talking her through problems, is always beefing her up saying “You’re great, you’re beautiful.”

So if she loses this friend it’s really going to affect her life, and her life’s already doing kind of poorly. So the structure of it was there, which was okay we need you supportive of her, but then we wanted to joke around. So we shot for about four or five hours them just talking, goofing around, and all that stuff just came out of improv moments of them eating this stuff, and saying “You need dental work,” Maya came up with that and suddenly Kristen, who was eating a blueberry, just stuck it on her teeth, we didn’t know.

So I’m just sitting at the camera cracking up because I don’t expect these moments to happen. So have all these things and then we get in the editing room and it’s just like okay what services that story that we need but in the funniest way? This kind of comedy is very interesting. In a weird way it’s kind of hard to show clips of and do trailers for because it’s very behavioral, and it requires a lot of investment in the characters, like you’re friends. If you listen to somebody just kind of joking around that you don’t know you don’t know if they’re funny or not unless they’re just telling a hard joke.

But their friends are all cracking up and you’re like that’s not that funny. But if you knew him and you knew the people around you, you knew the circumstances of your relationship and your references, then suddenly they become very funny to you. That’s kind of how it is with this because this is very behavioral based comedy. It’s hard to cherry pick those things out so when they do the trailers there are lots of big moments of things falling down or somebody burping because it’s just very hard to show in a trailer and get that feel going.

You get nervous sometimes. Sometimes people see our trailers and think “Oh, it’s just another one of those big, crazy, stupid comedies.” And it’s a big, crazy, kind of stupid comedy, but at the same time there’s a lot of heart. People are always surprised that it’s as emotional and real as it is.
 
(Q) : Just because that title alone and the idea that’s being pushed as the female corollary of “The Hangover” suggests that it’s a big, broad comedy. You’ve got a couple of sketch players in there too, people are going to figure it’s at best two dimensional.
 
(Paul Feig) : Yeah, exactly. That’s how comedies have been for so long. It’s really been Judd who has brought to movies that style that we had on “Freaks and Geeks.” There’s a very similar style to “Freaks and Geeks.” It’s conversational but then there are some high scenes of comedy and it’s all about these funny interactions. But you need those big high scenes too, because for commercial comedy that’s what you kind of sell it on.

You need those scenes, the water cooler scenes. We have a number of outrageous, big scenes in it, but we like to feel they come out of the character, they come out of the story and not just kind of like let’s stop the story and have a spaceship come. Although I should have thought of that, that would have been great.
 
(Q) : Well there’s always “Bridesmaids 2.”
 
(Paul Feig) : Yes. The outer space wedding.
 
(Q) : But one of the things that you do a lot is deal with people who can't maintain control of their own lives. That's a thing that's key to the way you work. You should read his terrific memoir, "Superstud." Just the seeds of where the comedy comes from you can find in that book. But this happens here too and it's almost like Kristen's lack of control kind of infects the entire wedding party.
 
(Paul Feig) : Yeah, because I find that very interesting. None of us really feel that in control of our lives. Even the moments we do in your heart you know you're kind of not, or if you think you are then it will immediately be proven that you are not. And it's that insecurity. To me, insecurity and awkwardness that's life and that's relatable and that's funny, because we all have been through it.

And just seeing how other people deal with it, sometimes it's funny to watch somebody not dealing with it well, and as long as you like that person you'll put up with them sort of making mistakes and that's what it is with this. This is a woman who's in a really bad point in her life. She wasn't in a bad point before; she had a business and all that but it went out of business because of the recession so it's knocked her off her game.

But the fact that you know kind of going in, we seed in through the movie what she used to be, it allows you to go like "Oh, well now I can have fun with her being in a bad period because I know she was doing fine, she's just in that period that we all go through where things aren't working, but I'm going to root for her to get back to who she was." Versus if she was just a pathetic loser, just a nut from day one it might be less satisfying, you might lose patience with her.
 
(Q) : Part of it too is I think, and I wonder if this was a concern for you, is that people are used to seeing Kristen Wiig work big and make an impact right away. If you do that in a movie you're going to lose people because you're basically top loading it.
 
(Paul Feig) : My touchstone is more of her movie work, like "Adventureland" and "Extract," where she plays these more grounded, they're very weird characters and very troubled and anxiety ridden, but she plays it at a nice level I think.
 
(Q) : In movies, as compared to television, she works very slowly.
 
(Paul Feig) : Yeah, very slow and very small, which I love because that's real. Then you can invest in that person. If she's bouncing off the walls being kind of crazy then you're like oh she doesn't have respect for the person she's playing. That to me is the key of it all. There are some things I see, and this was always endemic with a lot of comedy performers where they're playing a character like this guy's dumb and I know he's dumb and you know he's dumb, so let's just have fun with knowing how dumb he is.

It's like well, okay, but you don't like that person that you're playing so how am I supposed to like that person? And that's fine for that style of comedy when it's just big and broad that's great and I've got no problem with that, it just doesn't appeal to me and I don't know how to do that. I lose interesting watching that character. I want to be invested with the person so when they're in pain it's like oh my god, I'm in pain too, or oh I've been there with you and it gets better, or it just happened worse to you than what happened to me and all I can do is laugh because it happened. It's all behavioral comedy is what it is.
 
(Q) : When somebody's that big at the beginning of the movie you know that when the change comes it's going to be so abrupt it's almost the tag at the end of the movie. With you it's got to be evolutionary, doesn't it?
 
(Paul Feig) : You have to believe the transformation. Case and point with this. If she was just a disaster from the beginning of her life and we just see flashbacks of she was a mess and never got anything right, what we're hoping for is she gets better but that sea change is going to have to be so huge. People don't change that fast. There are epiphany moments in life but it's not like and now I'm a different person with no remnants of the old person.

So that's what I like about this is starting point is she was together, she's lost it, so what I'm rooting for is get back to who you were and then maybe I'll hope you're even a little bit more together than that. I think there are no big victories; I think everything is small victories in life. But that's one of the reasons why "Freaks and Geeks" got canceled was because they were like "Why can't they win at the end? Why can't something good happen at the end?" And I'm like they did win because they're still friends and they didn't die and they didn't kill anybody and they seem relatively happy, so that's all I ask for in life.
 
(Q) : That kind of emotional storytelling that's a part of "Freaks and Geeks" is basically NBC's Thursday night lineup now.
 
(Paul Feig) : Yeah. Comedy has definitely changed for what I consider the better since we were on with "Freaks and Geeks." It's gone from being joke based and big character based to being behavioral.
 
(Q) : It came basically from that period of all those stand ups like "Roseanne" and "Seinfeld," which is all about delivering as big a laugh as you can.
 
(Paul Feig) : Right, exactly. And yet even those great shows at least had a core. "Roseanne" was always great; it always kept this core of reality. Or I always loved "Taxi."
 
(Q) : But that was 30 years earlier.
 
(Paul Feig) : So the behavioral comedy is much more based just on humor interaction, and I think a lot of it comes from the internet, the fact that YouTube we see so much real life video of funny stuff and people acting like themselves that we've seen what's funny about that. And I love that because I've always found that funny. I work a lot of "The Office" and I've been in the writer's room. One season I was producing it in there with them and sometimes I'll in my late-40s-ish-ness kind of pitch out a joke and these younger writers will look at me like crazy because it's a joke and they don't respond to that.

They're kind of like no what's the real funny thing that would be set that's more the awkward or the weird thing that would naturally come out, versus here's a crazy joke or here's a pun, or that sort of thing. So I think it's great. The only thing is when you are in comedy now as you get older in comedy you really need to have voices of people your age, people older, and people younger around you. You do need to have some younger people around because your freshness date goes off in comedy sometimes because comedy's very referential.

I don't like referential comedy, I don't like making jokes about current bands because then it gets a shelf life and eventually it's not good, so it's all based on a relationship with the world but the style changes a bit. That's when you see some people do stuff and it just feels old fashioned and out of touch. You just need a lot of input. You need input from all generations; that's the best comedy. If a comedy can make all generations laugh then that's great, and I don't like to do stuff that ostracizes one part of the public, but the only way to really make everybody laugh is to do stuff about human nature because human nature never changes.
 
(Q) : Greg Daniels, who created "The Office," worked on "King of the Hill," which is a show that could almost work as radio. It's not wild, it's all incredibly behavior based, and it's all about those characters rather than it being big, cartoony comedy.'
 
(Paul Feig) : Yeah, it's the fun of people interacting in a real way. It's believable. If you believe something and you believe in those characters you'll follow them a lot longer than you will character that you just kind of go oh they're funny and I don't have any investment in this person.
 
(Q) : It's also about intimacy too, isn't it?
 
(Paul Feig) : Yeah, oh no very much so. Human reaction is all intimacy. I mean everybody we meet, even people we don't know we are intimate with in just the sense that when you're in front of a human being they become a human being to you. It's very hard to vilify people when they're right in front of you. It's easy to vilify somebody on the television or somebody you hear about, but the minute you get with them it's like they're a person and I see that they're human and they're vulnerable.
And that vulnerability is what ties us all together. It's interesting. The difference between American audiences and British audiences, it ties back to "The Office." The British "Office," Ricky Gervais' character was really mean and really hilarious.
 
(Q) : But a painful show to watch.
 
(Paul Feig) : A painful show to watch and very not likable. But the Brits for some reason love to see people take the piss out of. So they can sit there and enjoy the downfall of somebody. I find it very funny too; I love British comedy, I love those kinds of shows. But American audiences don't like that, so when they brought the American "Office" here, the first six episodes they kind of stuff with the format that the British show did and had Steve Carrel playing pretty jackassy, and it didn't take off.

People kind of didn't respond to it, and it was only after they came back for a second season. They got renewed because Kevin Reilly was running the network at that time and liked the show even though it had low ratings. And that summer that they were off "40 Year Old Virgin" came out, and Steve is so loveable and funny in that and it was this realization that people love him when he's that way, how do we keep Michael Scott still being the jerky boss but make it where people like him? And it was only once we added a vulnerability to him where sometimes he would do the right thing.

The first episode I ever directed was "Office Olympics," where he buys the condo and he's having all this remorse he bought this condo, they're playing games back in the office in his absence and they decide to do this funny ceremony where they give out these medals. So the whole end of the show was going to be that they are going to make fun of Michael by giving him a medal for the ceremony and kind of laugh at the fact that he's been given this medal and believes that it's a good thing.

But he gets up there and they start playing the national anthem and he's got it on, and his eyes start to well up because he's so happy he's getting this after his terrible day. And it was such a humanizing moment and then it was just kind of like "Steve, just go with that, let's keep doing that." And it was the moment I think people suddenly felt the humanity of him.
 
(Q) : It's also the moment where it became the American version of "The Office," where it wasn't just about him being so awful that you could just barely stand to watch it. Also there were only six episodes to the British "Office" too.
 
(Paul Feig) : Exactly. But the American "Office" became about not a guy who's a jerk but a guy who desperately wants to be liked but is terrible at it and is just like over reaching and thinks he's funny. I find that very funny, people who think they're funny who aren't funny. It's a very funny thing to portray in a show. It's not funny to have in real life.
 
(Q) : People mis-communicating at kind of a key moment, that could be almost a scene from "Freaks and Geeks."
 
(Paul Feig) : I find communication between people very funny, and I find people who try to be articulate and aren't it's a very lovable quality because I think that's how we all are in some ways. I mean some people are definitely more articulate than others, but I never feel very articulate. And I think all our problems come from the fact that we say the wrong thing at the wrong moment, we blurt out stuff thinking it's going to be great and it's wrong. I just find that to be the fiber of the vulnerability and the comedy between people.
 
(Q) : Comedy really has got to be about conflict in one way or the other, doesn't it?
 
(Paul Feig) : Oh very much so. When you're breaking the story it's all about the arc of the storytelling has to be where the moments of conflict come, when you bring them in, when do you kind of let up on them. But that has to drive the story forward, there has to be stuff happening, and usually not good stuff happening to people. Honestly, we beat up on Kristen's character quite a bit in this movie, but under the guise of she needs to deconstruct in order to reconstruct properly.

She's got so many things that are holding her back that you just need to tear her completely down so that then she's open for kind of changing herself and seeing life anew and bringing herself back. Every movie is kind of a redemption piece at some point, so that's what this one is.
 
(Q) : But what's interesting is there are so many moments of intimacy in this movie, but as much as you need to sort of break her down the kind of comedy you do is not about the kind of take no prisoners school of comedy, which almost seems like old style comedy now, that kind of really angry, assaultive comedy.
 
(Paul Feig) : Yeah. I think ultimately people don't enjoy it because it gets very assaultive. The problem is a lot of movies about women they play on women as if they're always at this fever pitch and fighting, and it's like that's not my experience with the women I know.
 
(Q) : In wedding comedies especially.
 
(Paul Feig) : Oh yeah, because the emotions are high and they're fighting and it's cat fight! And it's like oh god, please no cat fights. If you're going to have that at least build to it where it's finally a payoff where you're like oh there's no where else this could go. But even then make it real. I think women are so underserved by especially the comedy world, because they're either forced to be shrews or they're forced to be a drag or they're forced to be the hot girl who's kind of sweet and she's the Madonna figure that the goofy guy gets.
 
(Q) : The beautiful girl in a comedy is always mean. Always, without question.
 
(Paul Feig) : Yes, because all pretty people are mean.
 
(Q) : It’s something I struggle with.
 
(Paul Feig) : Me too.
 
(Q) : But I think it's fascinating that the beautiful woman in this movie, played by Rose Byrne, isn't that person. Kristen resents her but partially because she is such a good person.
 
(Paul Feig): Yeah, that's the thing. You're looking for your enemy and here's this person who has everything that you want and she's actually okay. She still gets a little weird, but she's not a villain. And that was the whole thing, is Rose is playing the villain role but we wouldn't let her be a villain. We just let it be a woman who actually likes Maya so much she wants her to herself and she also feels that Kristen's character might be holding Maya back, so she's almost like trying to help Maya by pulling her away from her old friend.

Everyone has a pure motive, and I think that's the difference. I have a real hatred of characters that are just kind of evil and they're doing stuff to be evil and to be mean, because I don't buy that. The worst person in the world doing the worst thing in the world generally has some reason why they're doing it, that they think they're doing the right thing, and they're screwed up half the time when they're thinking it, but it's not coming from a play of like "I'm just going to mess with the world." It's not that mustachioed twirling thing. I said this before, but all my writing comes from a George Bernard Shaw quote.

When he writes his books he has all these little maxims at the end, and one said "All men mean well." And I thought that's the basis everything should be. Everybody in the piece means well, they have some reason why they're doing what they're doing, we just got to figure out what it is and if it's something against what somebody else wants then that's great, then you have conflict. But they're both coming from a pure place or not a good place but a logical place.
 
(Q) : A place that makes sense to them. Because one of the things that I think started with "Freaks and Geeks" and we're really seeing the impact of it now is just this sort of thing where we understand all the characters in the things that you do. You make all their motives clear, and that's always been key to the way you worked.
 
(Paul Feig): You want to get the guess work out of the way. You don't want to give everything away right at the front because you want the fun of discovery, but at the same time you have to know why they're doing what they're doing because then you can enjoy the fruits of what they're doing. So in order to do that you really have to get to know the person. Like you're being funny with your friends versus people you don't know. That's why a TV show is so nice to do, because a TV show you get a group of friends and you get to stay with them for years.

And that's why eventually as shows go on people start referring to the characters. Like with "Seinfeld," "Oh, remember what Jerry did. Oh, remember what George did." Like they talk about them like they're friends because they do become your friends. That's why the show "Friends" worked, because they're your friends. In a movie you have less time to do that, but you still need to create that intimacy between the audience and the characters. And so it's by figuring out these moments that really showcase who this person is in a nutshell, illustrates it, makes you feel for them, shows you their vulnerability or shows you their goal, what they want. In show biz they always call it the stakes; what are the stakes?

And it is true, you need to raise the stakes, you need to know what that person wants and what that person wants has to be something that you want them to get or that seems important or that seems like it has to be done. Whether it's a big action movie like saving the world; well who doesn't want the world to be saved? Those are kind of easy stakes. So with character stuff it's just what is that goal that somebody wants and am I going to root for it? In this we see that friendship between them and then we see that friendship might be going away. We want her to get Maya back because we love Maya. Just from seeing her we like her as much as Annie probably does, so that pulls us along.
 
(Q) : There's a scene I want to show a clip of now that really does the things you're talking about.

(Paul Feig) : That's the amazing Melissa McCarthy, who is possibly the funniest person on the planet.
 
(Q) : I mean that outfit alone tells us exactly who she is.
 
(Paul Feig) : She came in, she had the whole look down that she wanted to do for the character. Her inspiration is Guy Fieri from the Food Network. She said "I want to dress like Guy Fieri." She always has a carpal tunnel band. She wanted that and to never explain it.
 
(Q) : But jus that kind of specificity. You see her, you kind of know her right away.
 
(Paul Feig): Yeah, oh no totally. Her character definitely represents the single gone wild. The bridesmaids for Kristen's character all represent different things she's facing in her life. Wendi McLendon-Covey plays Rita, who's the woman who has been married with kids and she's kind of down on marriage. Ellie Kemper, from "The Office," plays Becca, and she's the fresh-faced newlywed, and then Melissa plays Megan who's the single gone wild. It's kind of fun; it's like ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future for Annie.
 
(Q) : When you were making "Freaks and Geeks" a lot of actors went on to big careers. How was the casting process for that?
 
(Paul Feig) : We just opened the doors wide. We don't discriminate against any type or anything, it's just like give us the funniest people. So when you do that it's amazing the talent pool that you get in. The irony is James Franco, I was like they don't have to be handsome or anything, is like the most handsome man in the world. But that just came from the fact that we let this guy in and he was up against all these other people but was perfect for the role. You shouldn't filter anything in the beginning of the process, like oh we can't bring them in because they don't look like the character's supposed to look.

Well I don't care how the character's supposed to look, if somebody comes in and they're great and they blow me out of the water I'm going to change the character to make it fit them. Because then you get a real honest portrayal of a character and you get people who have that charisma and have that star quality. The fact that all these people went on to be big stars is a testament to Judd, who kept using them in things and kind of showing them off and getting them to write things for themselves and showcase themselves, but also it's a testament to them that they are these very talented people who got a chance to show the world how talented they are.
 
(Q) : Getting back to that whole casting thing, what gave you the final decision to get this particular ensemble cast?
 
(Paul Feig) : We saw a lot of really funny people, such a wealth of funny women, that it was a little overwhelming because there are so many women that could have played the roles. What we do is we narrow it down to like our 12 or 15 favorite candidates, and then we bring them in together and we'll kind of mix and match and pair them up and put them in threes and have them improv scenes, so you start to see who's connecting with who and what group kind of looks fun together.

Then you kind of weed it down and then there's always that moment where we all sit and take stock with Kristen and Annie and Judd and I. It usually becomes clear pretty quickly and then we just kind of go with it and then they're bonded already.
 
(Q) : There's one thing for me that's really satisfying to see a good looking person that's funny.
 
(Paul Feig) : Exactly. Rose Byrne is really funny and she couldn't be more beautiful, and that was a real discovery. We cast her because she was more of an actress than a comedian per se, but we saw her stuff in Judd had produced "Get Him to the Greek," and she's in that. She's hilarious playing this extreme character, this crazy British rock star woman, and so it just seemed like she's got it in her. So we hired her for this and then created this character of Helen and she just really surprised us all with how talented she is.
 
(Q) : I noticed you use Chicago and the Midwest as your background. Do you feel that often that comedies set in LA and New York are too slick and comedies set in the Midwest are more real and natural?
 
(Paul Feig) : I do find that.
 
(Q) : Where are you from?
 
(Paul Feig) : I'm from Michigan, so you kind of go with what you know also. There actually was a moment in this, because we wanted to film it in Los Angeles just for technical reasons so we could all stay close to home. And there was a thought for a little while maybe it should be moved to happen in California. Kristen was against it and I didn't feel it either. There's just something about it and I can't even tell you what it is. Maybe it's just people deal with different problems there.

Everybody deals with the same problems. You know what it is? So much stuff has been done about Los Angeles and New York that you just do feel like it is a little slick or it's a little bit of a world for most of the country that they don't relate to. Either they want to be in New York so much they don't have the patience for people having problems in New York or Los Angeles, and I think there's just a different way that people communicate in the Midwest too. They're actually a little more closed off sometimes.

Everyone's trying to be so polite and nice that there's more comedy of nobody's saying what they want to say. Here in New York out it comes, which is great, it's why I love it here. That said, there are actually a lot of projects I want to do that take place in New York, but it's taking the world here and then putting a spin on it is kind of interesting to me. But I'll always default to the Midwest because it's my people.
 
(Q) : But there's the thing too that if you set a comedy in Los Angeles you tend to cast people who look like they live in Los Angeles. You get those kinds of actors who are kind of beautiful and can do the comedy okay.
 
(Paul Feig) : That's very true. I really like that movie "(500) Days of Summer," because it was a very LA story but it didn't look like it because they just focused on the LA downtown scene, which is a whole new world for most people because most people in LA don't even dare go downtown because it's not what it was. But I love it down there so it's cool that the 20-somethings are now gravitating down there and it's revitalizing. I thought that was a cool use of Los Angeles, like showing a different Los Angeles than we normally see, because we normally see Beverly Drive and Beverly Hills with all the palm trees. I also have a prejudice; I think palm trees are the worst thing on film.

They look terrible, they're not lush, they're just kind of stark, and the skyline is just blue. It's just boring. The only thing worse than that are movies that take place on the beach in Hawaii. Anytime that the characters are running around in Hawaiian shirts I just find it very depressing, even though "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" was fantastic. There's just something visually about people drinking drinks with big straws in Hawaiian shirts.

 

End.