Sketch to Screen: SNL’s Kristen Wiig is Hollywood’s coolest comedienne

Date May 9, 2011

To any fan of Saturday Night Live, the name Kristen Wiig conjures her many memorable characters: unabashed one-upper Penelope, the quick-to-comment Target cashier, a Chardonnay-swilling Kathie Lee Gifford. Those who don’t make SNL a standing date may remember Wiig as Will Forte’s sidekick with Farrah Fawcett hair in MacGruber or Katherine Heigl’s bitchy E! co-worker in Knocked Up. But with this month’s release of Bridesmaids, Wiig’s first starring film role (she also co-wrote the script), she’s graduating from sketch- and scene-stealer to the ranks of leading ladies Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.

While Fey trades in old-maid awkwardness and Poehler in goofy grins, Wiig has a cool-girl factor and style. She likes Stella McCartney, Opening Ceremony and Halston Heritage. “When I get dressed up, I tend to go more on the edgier side than classic,” she says, adding in a teasing, signature Wiig-ian voice: “I like to mix and match my accessories.”

In Bridesmaids, Wiig plays a smart single trying to support her bride-to-be best friend (played by Maya Rudolph) and helm a wedding-party crew of babes and misfits. You’d be forgiven for assuming it’s a cosmos-and-canapés version of The Hangover, but Wiig is quick to dispel that notion.

“The movie is not totally about the crazy bachelorette thing,” she says from the 17th floor of 30 Rockefeller, on a break from SNL rehearsals. “It’s definitely about the ridiculousness of a lot of the things you have to go through as a bridesmaid. But more than that, it’s really about how Maya’s character is going off into this new life and I sort of feel alone and single and abandoned.”

The film mines the awkwardness that can arise when a woman invites a disparate group of kindergarten buddies and current friends to help plan her wedding. “They both know two different yous,” Wiig explains. “Without being jealous or catty, it’s just a little bit of, ‘Oh, you’ve known her that long? Well, we hang out all the time.’”

Film scriptwriting was new territory for Wiig. After Knocked Up wrapped, its director, Judd Apatow, approached her about writing a screenplay, and she immediately knew she wanted to do it with Annie Mumolo, who’d been her frequent writing partner at L.A. sketch workshop The Groundlings. While neither had written a film script before, they managed to bang out their first version in a frenetic six days, much to Apatow’s surprise. “He was like, ‘Uh, are you kidding me? You’re done?’” she says, laughing. “I mean, it went through a lot of incarnations after that, but we were, like, ‘Yeah! How long does it take?’”

It took closer to five years, in the end. “Annie and I literally wrote five books.” Asked how writing compares to acting, Wiig says: “I love it. It’s two totally different muscles.”

Another benefit of writing and starring in your own film is getting to cast your own love interest. Wiig’s choice: Mad Men star and popular SNL host Jon Hamm. “He had to be funny and act like a douchebag but be really hot. And it wasn’t even a question. I just knew that he could play a character like that so well.” She’s currently filming alongside Hamm again in Friends with Kids.

Wiig’s Bridesmaids, a group of stellar comedic actors including Melissa McCarthy and Rose Byrne, had plenty of opportunities to bond and play around on set. “We did a lot of improvising,” says Wiig. “The women in this movie are so funny and such amazing improvisers. I could’ve watched them all day.”