One of the Funniest Scenes in ‘Bridesmaids’ Was a Late Addition

Poop jokes are not my bag, baby. There are certainly some that have made me laugh; I’m not a monster. I also have kids, so I’ve had to adjust myself to a steady intake of them. Part of that is also my own doing, as I introduced my children to the Captain Underpants books, which, like any good adult who has grown up and lost their magic, I forgot were laden with scatalogical jokes (which crack my kids up). So, today, I’ll just give in and talk about the hardest I’ve ever laughed at a poop joke.

I was sitting in a theater with a woman who would regularly get drunk and be mean to me (we lived together, and were dating, it was bad). We were there to see a new comedy called Bridesmaids, and knew very little about it. I knew that there were funny ladies in it, and that the director was an actor in Heavyweights (I never watched Freaks and Geeks), but it kind of snuck up on me. We were having a good time, then several characters got food poisoning, and we were off to the races.

Bridesmaids is so much more than Melissa McCarthy emptying her bowels into a sink while claiming it’s like lava. But man, oh man, is that scene insanely funny. It’s also way more than just poop! There’s sweat and vomit as well. Kristen Wiig eats a chocolate-covered almond while drenched with sweat and trying to pretend that she’s fine. All of the actors involved take something that seems simple and crass and elevate it. And yet the whole thing wasn’t even initially in the film.

Wiig recently sat down for an interview with Vanity Fair, where she was joined by her co-star, Rose Byrne, and revealed that the scene in question didn’t become part of the film until later. “That was a sequence that came later in the writing process that we sort of embraced and like, OK, we’ll write our version of this type of thing,” Wiig noted. “We just kind of made it our own. We don’t want to see any vomit [but] you can find a way to do your version of it.”

The fact that it was a late addition speaks to how good the film is on its own. It didn’t need that scene, but when you have that many talented performers in your cast, you give them a little more to work with. As Wiig explained, “It was so fun to do that scene and to see … everyone’s version of not feeling well and trying to hide it. It was fun to watch the ladies do their thing.” I certainly had a good time. And, for a solid two hours, I forgot that I was in a doomed relationship with an unfaithful partner. Ah, the power of the movies.