In “Bride Wars,” two chick-flick veterans, Anne Hathaway (“Rachel Getting Married”) and Kate Hudson (“My Best Friend’s Girl”), play best friends whose weddings land on the same day. Throughout the movie, each bride-to-be makes countless attempts to sabotage the other to ultimately win the “bride war.”
In a phone conference with Hathaway and Hudson, both actresses shared their childhood wedding fantasies and behind-the-scene looks at the making of the film, which is scheduled to be released Jan. 9.
But it seems unlikely either woman would like to endure the trials both are privy to in this feature flick. In one such devious act, Liv (Hudson) puts orange dye in the tanning bed that Emma (Hathaway) had entered to get “a pre-wedding glow.” Hudson, who also produced “Bride Wars,” said she enjoyed filming the scene because it allowed her to call upon her past experiences in improvisation.
“As a kid, and growing up … sketch comedy and improv was really what I like[d] to do, and where I really love to get down and dirty,” Hudson recalled.
“And so for this movie, that one particular scene, I literally was a Russian girl; I came down with some weird like version of an Eastern European girl. I did a southern belle. I did all sorts of different characters, which hopefully will be on the DVD, because we had a good time doing that,” she added.
Both Hathaway and Hudson admitted that their characters’ reckless attacks are more extreme than anything they would attempt in real life.
“I have my boundaries for what I will put up with, and where I’ll hold my tongue is a lot earlier than [when Emma would hold hers]. It kicks in earlier, so I think that I’m kind of happier sort of stepping back, but I also don’t let people walk all over me,” Hathaway said.
But for Emma and Liv in “Bride Wars,” there are no boundaries, and they don’t hold their tongues.
“I tapped into my inner Bridezilla by, I think, acknowledging and watching some of my friends go through some stuff, and understanding the stress of it myself when I got married, and I think the other thing is just as females, we all know, we get really worked up. We’re very emotional creatures, and sometimes you can get a little carried away. So for me, with this movie, it was so fun to be able to make fun of ourselves. I think girls get crazy, but we can also laugh at ourselves really well,” Hudson explained.
Hudson is particularly familiar with weddings and married life; she was married to Chris Robinson of The Black Crows from 2000 to 2007. She explained that because her parents, Goldie Hawn and Bill Hudson, were not married when she was growing up, she did not have a specific wedding fantasy planned as a child.
“[My brother, Oliver Hudson, and I] had it so ingrained in us that you didn’t need to sign a piece of paper to say that you’re a family or that you love each other. So that was how we were programmed. Then, of course, I meet Chris, and I’m like, ‘I’m getting married!’ And then all of a sudden I got really excited about it. So for me it was really more about who was going to be the guy that I would spend the rest of my life with. … And then when I met that partner, I was very excited about possibly calling up Vera Wang and seeing what she could do for me,” Hudson said.
However, Hathaway, who is not married, nursed a wedding fantasy centering on Leonardo DiCaprio.
“It was kind of a vague notion, and I just assumed that Leo and I would find some kind of happy medium between our two aesthetics, and have a glorious wedding. It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, however. So my fantasies have taken a left turn,” Hathaway joked.
Amid the catfights and sabotages, as well as the tender moments of “Bride Wars,” it’s clear Hudson and Hathaway have learned a great deal from each other and enjoyed their time working together.
“Kate does something which is so incredibly rare in an actress: [She is] able to find the balance between being professional and having fun,” Hathaway explained. “Sometimes I can get lost and mired down in kind of the professional side things and Kate just — without sacrificing any of the work, without taking it any less seriously than anyone else — manages to just bring a sense of fun to absolutely everything. I think I kind of assumed that I needed to torture myself in order to produce good work, and I just learned from Kate that you can produce spectacular work, as she does in this film, without going through that process.”
Hudson concurs what the movie’s previews make unmistakable: “Bride Wars” is a poster child of chick-flick movies.
“When it was done, I was so excited. I wanted my girlfriends to see the movie. I was just like, ‘Oh, I just can’t wait to see it with my girlfriends,'” she said.
