Paul Feig Breaks Down 'Bridesmaids' Airplane Scene After 10 Year Anniversary

Hi, I'm Paul Feig, the director of Bridesmaids,

and this is notes on a scene.

I just feel like I'm excited. And I feel relaxed.

And I'm ready to party!

We're going to look at the airplane scene,

one of my favorite sequences in the movie,

and one of the sequences that I probably laughed the most

during the making of.

The original scene in the script was that they go

to Las Vegas.

And I thought it would be hilarious.

And we were actually out scouting and everything,

and finding locations for it.

And then we just, one day, in our writers room,

our rewrite room, we just went, You know what?

The Hangover was just last year.

It did Vegas really, really well.

Do we want to compete with that?

And so I remember going,

Well, what if they just don't get there?

What if it all falls apart on the plane?

And that became a very funny idea to us.

And this scene is now history.

So, this is starting halfway through the actual scene

where Annie's been given booze and a pill by Helen

to try to calm her down.

Did Helen tried to sabotage her? We don't know.

I don't think she did, but it just happened.

And so, this is Annie coming up into first class,

Annie the nervous flyer coming into first class.

The whole thing on this was every time we would do a take

Kristen would do something different.

And she was so funny at playing drunk

that I just kept doing it over and over again,

because she would always come up with something new

that made me laugh.

And I think I made her shoot this,

it had to be seven or eight times.

Just because whenever she would come

through that curtain back here,

it was always just like, What's gonna happen?

What's she gonna do this time?

What stage of drunkenness will she be at?

And what stage of aggressiveness will she be at with Helen?

Is this that place that was on The Real World?

Are you kidding me? Oh my God-

This was at this place called Air Hollywood,

which is out in the valley in Los Angeles.

And they have these insides of these planes.

And you go in and you can, they can replace the seats,

and you can change the color,

and all this stuff if you want.

And so we, you know, made this into a nice 747

because the first class had to be nice.

But, you have to keep pulling walls out.

So a shot like this, you know,

we're basically, we're out the window.

Everything's very tight.

And you've got the cameras kind of in, you know,

so you can see everybody.

It's not fun shooting on an airplane.

Let's just say that.

See, there are our really high-end special effects back

out there.

We had somebody blowing smoke past the windows.

So, they're apparently flying at a very low altitude

through a cloud.

But, we thought we were very clever with this

because we weren't great filmmakers back then.

Hey, buddy. Hey.

How you doing?

I'm good.

I feel, I'm so much more relaxed.

Thank you, Helen.

It's the most dangerous thing in the world

for an actor to play drunk,

because it's so easy to be cartoonish with it.

And my only advice is always, when you're drunk,

the thing you lose control of is your lower back.

So, it's a lot of like leaning and this kind of stuff.

But everybody who's drunk doesn't think they're drunk.

And so, they don't try to act drunk.

And so, that's really the key.

But she had, yeah, she had a major, major task

to be both high and drunk at the same time.

But, that's why it was so much fun.

One of my favorite things that Kristen does in this scene,

I don't know why it makes me laugh,

is this weird hip swing she does when she arrives.

This is why it makes me laugh.

It's just such a weird thing.

But that's, you know, again, that goes back to like,

it's just funny being drunk 'cause you kinda think you're

in control of your body and you're doing these weird things.

So, the genius of Kristen Wiig.

I'm excited. And I feel relaxed.

And I'm ready to party.

♪ Yeah, with the best of them ♪

♪ And I'm gonna go down to the river ♪

I forget what was scripted and what wasn't,

but I can almost guarantee that I'm ready

to party wasn't scripted.

I think this only happened at one take,

the, 'I'm ready to party.'

And this was one of our later takes.

And I just remember going, okay, I think we are,

she is so in the zone right now.

And especially when she then turns around

and just makes fun of Helen, Oh, you do, all that stuff.

We're going to a restaurant tonight.

I know the owners.

You do?

Oh, Helen knows the owner.

When she turns, it really makes me laugh.

Because she comes up so contrite, Hey, thanks Helen.

And just, the moment when her eyes just settle on Helen

and the face goes, I can't remember in the script

how much she was actually supposed to be aggressive to her.

My memory is that this came out of nowhere.

The moments in comedy that I find to be

the less successful ones are the ones that are heavily,

not heavily scripted, but just heavily rehearsed,

and over-thought.

You know, where we're just doing all this stuff.

And like, Oh, do this and turn your head this way,

and actually put the emphasis on this word.

And you know, then you're just kind of making them

into puppets, and that's not great.

Miss, you cannot be up here.

Hello, Grandpa.

Gotta shout out, this man is the hero of this scene.

That is Mitch Silpa, who is brilliant.

He's been in two of my other movies, too.

But this scene would not be funny without Mitch,

who is the perfect straight man for this.

And they, Kristin and Mitch know each other

from The Groundlings.

They were all, you know, they've known each other forever.

They were do sketches on stage together.

And so, having Mitch there just made all the difference

in the world, to just be this absolute straight man

to all this terrible stuff that she says.

I always try to use two cameras, A and a B camera.

A camera is your hero camera.

So, that's this getting this main shot.

This is your A camera, right here,

shooting all this, camera's right here.

But usually, I'll put like a B camera here

that will be getting a closeup of her.

Or an over, so it's like a two-shot of them.

'Cause you want to have that coverage so that you can,

you know, if they're doing something super funny,

I can cut between it.

But if I want to cut a line out, or if I need to pull

up the timing on something, or I want to cut

to another joke they did from a previous take,

I can cut between them.

Because what I hate is, you know,

standard movie-making, okay,

we're gonna shoot your side of the scenes.

We shoot your of the scene.

And you get on a roll with the person

who's off screen in the scene.

And you're making jokes, and they make you laugh,

and there's an ad-lib.

Then you go like, okay,

well now let's recreate that on this side.

And it's never as good.

It's always, you know, they're doing a joke again.

But what's funny is the things that happen

for the very first time and how people react,

and if they laugh at each other.

And that that's when you go, oh,

I'm really watching something that feels real to me.

I'm sorry.

I just want to be here with my friends.

'Cause I'm with this group.

The sign just went off.

Can't she stay up here for like a minute?

[Steve] Absolutely not.

I always just find it very endearing

how Maya hold her hand during this.

I always find it very sweet.

Now, maybe it's one of these things

I don't even know if I noticed it when we were shooting it.

This is the crazy thing when you make a movie.

You're so focused on certain things

that there's things that your actors

do that you don't notice.

And it's only when you get in the editing room, you're like,

oh my gosh, I didn't realize

they did their eyebrow lift here, they did something.

You see a lot of it,

but then there's other stuff you just kind of don't see.

Coach passengers are not allowed up here in first class.

It's policy, sorry.

Oh, this is a very,

this is a very strict plane that I'm on.

Welcome to Germany.

[speaking German]

This was my gag.

All right, why don't you go on-

I'm gonna go take a nap.

I'm tired. Yeah, there you go.

I think it's a good idea.

Catch you on the flip side, motherfuckers.

That was the one that came out of nowhere

that made me laugh so hard.

I mean, I think if you turned up the audio

you would probably hear me snort in the background.

I always said, when I make a movie,

I always have to pull myself further

and further away from the set because I will laugh.

I just do that.

And I always like to try to be up with the cameras,

and next to them, and watching the monitors.

But, a lot of times in these kinds of scenes,

I just have to take myself away because I will ruin a take.

This should be open because it's civil rights.

This is the 90s.

Right, it's not.

You're in the wrong decade.

You are. Okay, I am.

[Annie] You are.

The way that Mitch is playing off her

and just everything she's saying,

these are all ad-libs that are happening in the moment.

And just the fact that he's countering her

with just treating her like a child

and trying to get rid of her,

but also being funny in the process,

and just keep setting her up.

I mean, it's really brilliant.

The other thing I love about this whole scene is

the idea of the curtains.

We had a lot of fun with that.

There's some gags we had

where she kept just putting her face through.

And then she would do, I'm on an elevator,

and she'd be going up and down.

So, we had lots of curtain gags that didn't make it

into the movie, so.

The tracking shot that we go, you know, over here,

the whole idea playing up the comedy of like, okay,

she failed at this door.

So now, somehow, she's going to be more successful

at this door which looks exactly the same.

It's a tracking shot just to kind of play

the comedy of like,

I just want to remind you where that other door was.

And it was only about 10 feet away

from the door she's coming in now

Miss.

No, it's not me.

Yes, it is you.

Please go back to your seat.

Yes, I'm with him.

I'm, I am Mrs. Igles, Mrs. Iglesias.

No, you're not.

You were just out here and you put sunglasses on.

Look at that.

Now see, look at that light flying around.

That's a special effect that we did,

Bob Yeoman, our great DP.

You're always trying

to make it feel like a plane's moving

and not just sitting there with blue out the window.

That was the thing, like, the plane was kind of banking

and the sun was going by.

So, there you go, movie magic.

Your relationship with your DP is probably

the most important next to your relationship

with your actors on the set.

Because, you know, if we don't capture it right,

and we don't light it right, and if it doesn't look right,

then everything these amazing actors are doing

is gonna look terrible or just not work.

So first things first, I need a DP who will cross shoot.

'Cause as long as you can still see people's both eyes,

that's what audiences connect with.

It's so funny in movies,

because this is what's making it funny.

It's seeing her in relationship to him, you know?

So, that's the comedy is like,

she's passing herself off as his wife,

but he doesn't want anything to do with her.

So, you've got it all right there.

Sir, she can have my seat, okay?

Everyone should experience first class

at least once in their life.

And Annie shouldn't miss out just

because she can't afford it.

No, ma'am. I'm afraid that's not allowed.

Help me, I'm poor.

I don't think that was in the script either.

I think that now it's a very famous line.

I've seen people make things on Etsy.

You can get a mug that says, Help me, I'm poor.

We're a whole wedding party.

I'm, I'm the bride. I'm getting married.

The seat's empty. She's obviously nervous.

We'll calm her down.

You know, I understand. But Claire is right.

Everybody go back to your seats.

Okay, you especially.

You have three seconds to get back to your seat.

You can't get anywhere in three seconds.

[Steve] Well, you better try.

You're setting me up for a loss already.

[Steve] Okay, thank you.

Like, I don't normally like people to get that close

to camera 'cause it becomes a little intense.

But, her getting up was just so funny that we wanted

to keep it all in one shot.

And it kind of worked.

I mean, we kept everybody in focus

and it didn't get insanely big.

So, happy accidents.

Whatever you say, Stove.

It's Steve.

Stove, what kind of name is that?

That's not a name. My name is Steve.

For comedy, I'm not a fan of music on comedy

because I find it becomes very editorial,

and becomes very like, this is funny,

or like we don't trust the audience.

And also, I've seen like this is played in the silence.

That's what's the funny part is the awkwardness of it.

Are you an appliance?

No, I'm a man. And my name is Steve.

You're a flight attendant.

That's absolutely accurate.

You can close that. Thank you.

The dynamics of the scene are so funny because, you know,

you have a nervous person who's trying to do the right thing

who then gets sabotaged

by getting this drug and booze combo.

And then, all this stuff comes out.

And it's a classic comedy set up.

I just loved the dynamics of how many people are

in this scene.

You know, that was just all Kristen stuff.

But you know, then we also have the comedy

of Melissa with the air marshal, John.

And then you've got the relationship between Wendy

and Ellie going on.

And so, it allows you to cut around all these things

and really keep the energy up.

You're learning a lot about everybody,

and everybody's kind of coming apart at the seams

and showing who they really are.

It's weird, it doesn't feel like 10 years ago.

And then sometimes, it feels like it was 20 years ago.

When you make a movie, there's such vivid things that happen

to you every day.

And it's also recorded, obviously, because it's a movie.

And so, these things just stick in your head.

And you kind of, you feel like they just happened to you

because they're so alive in you.

And I mean, just remembering moments of directions I gave

or interactions I had on the side, like,

Oh, try this, or things that surprise me

that people would do, but I would just burst out laughing.

And all that stuff stays very vital to you.

But, I guess when I really think about it,

it does feel like 10 years

because I've made so many movies in between that.

But, I think it's also the fact that people come up

to me all the time and really talk about Bridesmaids

and how much it means to them,

and how many times they've watched it.

And they can quote lines.

Normally, things don't tend to last that long

in people's memories.

So, it's just a testament to the great work

by everybody on this film.

[movie playing] [Paul laughing]

Everything Kristen does makes me laugh.

She is one of the funniest people on the planet.