Kristen Wiig, a name synonymous with comedy. A name that up until a few years ago, wasn’t all that well known. Truth be told, it wasn’t until 2011 that Wiig really broke out, thanks to the mega-successful Bridesmaids. Yes, she had a long list of respectable credits before that but after Paul Feig’s hilarious ensemble comedy, Wiig became an A-list talent and now, she’s hotter than ever.
This month, Wiig has Despicable Me 2 coming out and recently, she attended the film’s press day in Los Angeles to participate in a roundtable interview, which we were fortunate enough to be at.
Check out what she had to say below.
What was the most attractive thing about the Lucy character? What made you want the role?
Kristen Wiig: After doing and seeing the first one, and loving the movie, when they asked me to be in the sequel I said yes right away. I knew they wanted to make this character very enthusiastic though. She has to be able to bring Gru back and at the same time have that personality that he would be attracted to. I’ve never really played anyone like that before and it was a lot of fun.
You’ve played characters who’ve had bigger problems with romance than this one but she’s still a little romantically impaired. Where do you fall on the scale?
Kristen Wiig: Aren’t we all romantically impaired? [laughs] In the beginning of any relationship you always feel a bit awkward and you’re nervous because you’re meeting someone for the first time. I don’t know how I would rate myself though. [laughs]
After appearing in the first film, and then returning and playing a different character, how different was the experience for you?
Kristen Wiig: It was very different. The characters are polar opposities in how they act and look. When they asked me to do the sequel I was very excited but I knew that my character from the first film wouldn’t be in it. But then they approached me with this new character and luckily it all worked out.
You and Steve [Carell] both have sketch comedy experience, was there room for ad-libbing in this film?
Kristen Wiig: You would read the script, which was great, and try it a bunch of different ways, and they would need you to try it a bunch of different ways for editing purposes. But there were also times where they would say “ok go crazy” or “do your take on it,” so it was a mix. Mostly by the script though.
What was your first reaction to the methed-out, purple version of the Minions?
Kristen Wiig: It was really funny actually. And I liked how when they were evil, they had hair. Very crazy, bushy hair. I just thought it was an interesting take on having everything go wrong.
How do you find the voice for a character? Do you have to see the character first?
Kristen Wiig: It kind of depends. On this one we didn’t really veer too much from my own voice, just kind of amped it up a bit. It depends on the project though and here they wanted Lucy to be more down to earth and real sounding.
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