50 Fun Facts About Bridesmaids

Who directed Bridesmaids?

Apatow produced; Feig went on to make The Heat, Spy and A Simple Favor.

Kristen Wiig co-wrote the screenplay with which fellow Groundlings performer?

The pair later co-wrote and starred in Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar; Mumolo cameos as the nervous woman on the plane.

What was the script's original title?

Wiig and Mumolo met at The Groundlings improv troupe in Los Angeles in the early 2000s.

In which city does Wiig's character Annie Walker live?

Helen's world is Chicago; the two Midwestern cities were mostly recreated in Los Angeles.

What business of Annie's went under after the Great Recession?

It was called Cake Baby, and Officer Rhodes turns out to have been a regular customer.

Where does Annie work at the start of the film?

She is fired for a profanity-laden argument with a teenage customer; the Blu-ray has a ten-minute improvised version of the fight.

Who plays Annie's lifelong best friend and the bride, Lillian?

Rudolph and Wiig were SNL castmates; Mindy Kaling also read for the role.

Which uncredited actor plays Ted, the wealthy, self-absorbed man Annie has casual sex with?

Paul Rudd shot a blind-date scene that was cut from the finished film.

Helen, Annie's rival for Lillian's friendship, is the wife of whom?

The other bridesmaids are Lillian's cousin Rita, her co-worker Becca and Doug's sister Megan.

Who plays Helen?

The Australian actress had auditioned for Lillian; Feig cast a non-comedian so Helen would not seem 'too arch'.

Why does police officer Nathan Rhodes first pull Annie over?

She passes the sobriety test but gets a ticket for broken brake lights, which he agrees to rescind if she fixes them.

Chris O'Dowd, who plays Officer Rhodes, is best known in Britain for playing Roy in which sitcom?

The Irish actor from Boyle, County Roscommon, later created and starred in Moone Boy.

What kind of restaurant does Annie choose for the lunch that gives everyone food poisoning?

Helen escapes because she did not eat the meat.

In the bridal-boutique scene, what does Megan do?

Becca vomits on Rita, and Lillian, in a couture gown, ends up defecating in the street.

Where does Helen's rival bachelorette plan take the group, overruling Annie's lake-house idea?

They never arrive: the plane makes an emergency landing and the party rides a bus home.

What does Annie take from Helen on the plane that leads to her breakdown?

She hallucinates, becomes belligerent with the crew, is tackled by Megan and apprehended by an air marshal.

Who tackles Annie on the plane?

Melissa McCarthy's Megan is Doug's sister and later gives Annie the pep talk that turns her life around.

What theme does Helen give Lillian's bridal shower, stealing an idea Annie had suggested?

Helen then upstages Annie's heartfelt gift with a trip to Paris, and Annie destroys the decorations.

What does Nathan surprise Annie with the morning after their romantic night, prompting her to leave?

As a former regular at her bakery he keeps urging her to reopen it.

Who visits Annie after she hits rock bottom and motivates her to take control of her life?

Annie then fixes her car, starts baking again and tries to win Nathan back.

On the wedding day, why does Helen come to Annie for help?

Helen tearfully admits she has no real friends and is unhappy in her marriage; Lillian is found hiding in her own apartment.

Which group appears as themselves to perform their hit 'Hold On' at the wedding?

The song was the biggest US single of 1990 and was written by Carnie Wilson, Chynna Phillips and Glen Ballard.

'Hold On' topped the Billboard Hot 100 in June of which year?

It was nominated for the Song of the Year Grammy and later ranked 15th on Billboard's greatest girl-group songs.

How does the film end for Annie and Nathan?

Annie and Helen have also just agreed to get dinner together, finally becoming friends.

Melissa McCarthy's Bridesmaids performance earned her a nomination for which Academy Award?

Wiig and Mumolo were nominated for Best Original Screenplay in the same year.

Which TV role did Melissa McCarthy play for seven years before Bridesmaids, as Lorelai's chef best friend?

In autumn 2011, weeks after Bridesmaids made her a star, she won an Emmy for Mike & Molly.

Who is Melissa McCarthy's husband and production-company partner?

The couple founded On the Day Productions and later made Thunder Force and Superintelligence together.

Rebel Wilson auditioned for Megan but was cast as Brynn, Annie's roommate. Whose sister is Brynn?

It was Wilson's first American production; she reportedly earned $3,500, all of which went on Screen Actors Guild fees.

Ellie Kemper, who plays Becca, was best known at the time for playing which character on The Office?

She went on to star as Kimmy Schmidt; at Princeton she was on the 1998 national championship field hockey team, mostly on the bench.

Wendi McLendon-Covey, who plays Rita, went on to spend a decade as the matriarch of which sitcom family?

She began her career as Deputy Clementine Johnson on Reno 911!, another Groundlings alumna.

The actress who plays Lillian is the daughter of which singer?

Rudolph joined SNL in 2000, met Will Forte at the Groundlings and later won an Emmy for playing Kamala Harris.

The actress who plays Helen earned two Emmy nominations as Ellen Parsons in which legal thriller?

She reunited with Feig and McCarthy for Spy and with Wiig for a run of comedies including Neighbors.

The film's director co-created which cult high-school series with Judd Apatow before Bridesmaids?

It was based on his own school days in Michigan; he also played science teacher Mr. Pool on Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

Roughly what was the film's production budget?

It grossed close to $300 million worldwide, more than Knocked Up, making it Apatow Productions' biggest hit.

Which superhero film kept Bridesmaids off the top spot on its opening weekend in May 2011?

It opened to about $26 million and kept going; Universal said a third of the audience was male.

Where was Lillian and Doug's wedding filmed?

Although set in Milwaukee and Chicago, almost everything was shot in and around Los Angeles; the highway scenes were filmed in Oxnard.

Which pairing's earlier film did Apatow cite as the model when asking Wiig for a script?

Apatow made the offer after casting Wiig as a passive-aggressive TV executive in Knocked Up in 2006.

The director said Hollywood had told him what about the film before it was released?

He said he feared becoming 'the man who killed movies for women for eternity'.

In 2021 the Writers Guild of America ranked the Bridesmaids screenplay where among the century's greatest?

The New York Times put the film 32nd on its 2025 list of the century's 100 best movies.

Why was there never a Bridesmaids sequel?

When reports said Universal might build a film around Megan instead, McCarthy called the idea 'terrible' and refused to do it without Wiig.

Which studio released Bridesmaids in US cinemas on May 13, 2011?

It premiered in Westwood two weeks earlier and went on to overtake Knocked Up as the top-grossing Apatow Productions film.

The idea for Bridesmaids came in 2006, shortly after Wiig was cast in which Apatow comedy?

She played a passive-aggressive cable TV executive in it. Apatow asked if she had any screenplay ideas, and she and Mumolo wrote while she was on SNL in New York and Mumolo was in LA.

Rebel Wilson's reported $3,500 fee for playing Brynn all went toward paying for what?

It was her first American production. She had improvised for Apatow and Feig for an hour while auditioning for Megan.

Which star of The Office read for the role of the bride before it went to an SNL alumna?

Greta Gerwig and Judy Greer also auditioned for unspecified parts, and Busy Philipps from Freaks and Geeks tried out for Megan.

The actress eventually cast as Helen had first auditioned for which role?

Feig wanted a non-comedian as the nemesis, fearing the character would come out 'too arch if we had a funny woman doing it'.

Annie's roadside run-ins with Officer Rhodes were filmed in which California city?

Production designer Jefferson Sage chose it as a 'broad, flat, green area away from mountains' to stand in for the highway between Milwaukee and Chicago.

According to Universal, roughly what share of the film's audience was male?

The studio also reported that 63 percent of the audience was over 30. It opened second behind Thor with $26.2 million.

Which actor's scene as Annie's blind date was cut from the finished film?

Other fleeting faces include Nancy Carell and Melanie Hutsell on the tennis court and Annie Mumolo as the nervous woman on the plane.

Why did producers originally plan to skip releasing the film in most foreign countries?

Apatow called the eventual international haul of nearly $120 million 'a wonderful surprise'.

Officer Rhodes recognises Annie as the former owner of which business?

He had been a regular customer and keeps nudging her to start again, which is why his gift of supplies the morning after sends her running.