The “My Best Friend’s Wedding” Cast Reunited For Entertainment Weekly
Before all you young tricks were stinking up Saturday afternoon TBS with marathons of How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days and Bring It On, there was a rom-com for those of us cynical tricks who believe there isn’t so much happily ever after as it is happily gay and hag ever after. My Best Friend’s Wedding both warped my expectations of what a writer’s salary can be (Julia, how are you affording that fancy New York lifestyle on a food critic budget?) and made me want to get married just for the sake of having an Aretha Franklin sing-a-long in a lobster restaurant. It’s been 22 years (!!) since the movie came out, and the cast reunited to give the dirty details on how the movie was made…and remind everyone what a salty gay Rupert Everett is!
Entertainment Weekly got the cast together as part of its romantic comedy issue, and it actually seems like the cast really gets along. Julia Roberts and Dermot Mulroney are friends in real life, but it still sounds like they were happy to see Cameron Diaz and Rupert. Why wouldn’t they? Rupert dragged Madonna to filth in his memoir, but he had nothing but nice shit to say about America’s Sweetheart! That may have been because his role blossomed from the original two lines only written for him in the movie:
“When I got the part, it was literally two lines in the script. I thought it was kind of a career-icide move at first. P.J. Hogan made me test, like, three or four times for the film. I kept saying, ‘P.J., what can I do? There’s nothing I can do.’”
Rupert says the chemistry among the four led to his sassy gay ass getting more lines, which, thank God. My sexually confused self as a kid would have never blossomed into my own sassy gay ass by just watching an annoying love triangle between Julia, Cameron, and Dermot. That being said, I also remember the movie’s karaoke scene playing an instrumental role in accepting my own gayness since I NEVER wanted to marry a lady if it meant having to hear her ruin Dusty Springfield’s “I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself” at a drowning cat decibel. Per Cameron, that shit was her ACTUALLY struggling with the song and Dermot goading her along:
“I was terrified to do that scene, for real. I allowed the true terror of singing in front of people to be alive in me. I wanted to run and hide, and Dermot kept me there. He said, ‘You can do it, you can do it.’ In the scene I’m just staring at him the whole time because he’s looking at me like, ‘You’re okay. You’re not gonna die.’ And I was like, ‘But I’m dying.’”
I was beginning to forget Julia was even in this movie, but then they all got to chatting about how they had to do reshoots since test audiences thought it was shit her home-wreccking ass was originally able to find love with a dude played by John Corbett at the wedding after she failed to break up Cameron and Dermot’s characters. Director P.J. Hogan gave the rundown of why they decided to reshoot a bunch, including the bathroom makeup scene at the baseball stadium:
“Once I knew that the studio would pay [to reshoot] the last scene, I thought, ‘There were a couple of other scenes I think sucked — we best do a better job.’ The first bathroom scene just didn’t work at all. The way it originally played was Cameron’s character just forgave Julianne almost immediately. I remember on set, Cameron kept saying, ‘I don’t know why I’m forgiving her, I just want to punch her. She almost ruined my life.’”
They didn’t stop there…instead of giving Julia love with John, they blessed her with life with a different man: Rupert! Julia said it was a needed move, and P.J. said the studio called it the “$40 million reshoot” because the changes likely made the movie an extra $40 million at the box office. Rupert says his and Julia’s characters end up just like Will and Grace, with Julia adding, “We’re not living together. But I live across the street.” That’s probably because if she wanted to live with a self-loathing bitchy queen, she’d dial up Dolce & Gabbana!
Pic: EW/Ruven Afanador