The Origins Of "I'll Have What She's Having," And 12 More Behind-The-Scenes Moments From The Making Of Iconic Rom-Coms
In one version of the Bridesmaids script, Annie (Kristen Wiig) gets inspired by a luxurious bridal boutique and fantasizes about a romantic life spent with Matt Damon. (No, it was never shot.)
1.Always Be My Maybe tells the tale of celebrity chef Sasha (Ali Wong) and aspiring-but-stuck musician Marcus (Randall Park) reconnecting in adulthood after a huge fight blew up their childhood friendship. Appropriately enough for the stars of a movie that leans on food as a motif, Wong and Park actually first met through a fried rice competition.
According to Glamour, Park hosted the contest at his apartment when he was a recent graduate of UCLA, where Wong was a student at the time, as well as a member of the Asian American performance troupe LCC Theatre Company, which Park cofounded. Alas, Wong's fried rice, which featured cranberries in a starring role, didn't win the crown. That honor went to a chocolate fried rice, which I assume was cooked by a bona fide culinary genius.
2.In Palm Springs, Nyles (Andy Samberg) and Sarah (Cristin Milioti) try to build a meaningful relationship with one another while trapped in a time loop, as you do. One of the benefits of such a life is that since the timeline is reset every night, they can take pretty much any risk and not have to deal with the consequences. Nyles and Sarah take advantage of this as often as they can, and in one memorable moment, give each other stick-and-poke tattoos of penises.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the tattoos were improvised by Samberg and Milioti, who shot the scenes involving them in a single take. In lieu of actual ink — since, you know, most of us aren't living in an eternally resetting timeline — they used eyeliner.
3.According to an extract from From Hollywood with Love: The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again) of the Romantic Comedy by Scott Meslow published by inews.co.uk, the famed fake orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally was a true team effort on the part of the cast and creative team.
Meg Ryan (Sally) suggested that her character fake an orgasm, while Billy Crystal (Harry) came up with the "I'll have what she's having" line, which ranks at #33 on AFI's list of "100 Years...100 Movie Quotes," a compilation of the "greatest movie quotes of all time." And, of course, that line was said by none other than director Rob Reiner's mother, Estelle.
4.In Enough Said, one character's odd habit of avoiding the onions in salsa and guacamole was taken from the ex-wife of screenwriter and director Nicole Holofcener's boyfriend. (With her blessing!)
Holofcener told Screen Daily, "He told me about this habit she had. I loved it. She knows it, she’s seen the movie. She laughed."
5.In The Birdcage, Hank Azaria played Agador Spartacus, the perennially overwhelmed assistant/housekeeper employed by Robin Williams and Nathan Lane's Armand and Albert. During a chaotic family dinner, Armand slips and falls in the kitchen before popping back up as if nothing happened. Everyone else, Agador among them, plays it cool, and for a good reason: The fall wasn't scripted and was a genuine accident on Williams' part.
Azaria told the AV Club, "That was absolutely not intentional. And if you watch that little piece of film again, you’ll see me laughing and Robin laughing. It’s one of those things that happens that you never really think they’re going to use, but I was so emotionally upset in the scene — I was supposed to be crying — that I just pretended that he was making me cry even more. But I was actually laughing."
6.According to an oral history of the Clueless party scene published by Vulture, Donald Faison came up with the "I'm keeping it real" line his character Murray says while his head is being shaved. When director Amy Heckerling mistakenly recalled that the line was in the script, Faison jumped in to say that he actually added it after he heard a local kid say it.
Faison said, "Some kid in my neighborhood said, 'Just keep it real. Just make sure you keep it real.' And I was like, 'Oh. That’s what the kids are saying now?' And so I put that in there myself: 'I’m keepin’ it real. Because I’m keepin’ it real.'"
7.Becky Albertalli, the author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, talked to the Hollywood Reporter about the process of adapting her book into the teen rom-com Love, Simon. One major change made to the story was the addition of the character Ethan (Clark Moore), an openly gay student at Simon's high school. While some authors may be skeptical of such a significant addition to their story, it's safe to say that Albertalli is a fan.
