Kristen Wiig’s “Bridesmaids” had audiences in hysterics when it debuted over the weekend – but who is the movie’s newcomer who throngs of women are audibly ogling in theaters and taking to Twitter proclaiming their love for?
AccessHollywood.com caught up with Kristen’s leading man, actor Chris O’Dowd (Officer Rhodes), who is still adjusting to the movie’s success.
“I’m overjoyed that it’s doing so well,” Chris told Access. “It’s a hell of a ride!”
The 31-year-old Irish actor, who now lives in London, said a long improv session with the “Saturday Night Live” star helped him land the role.
“Kristen was there with Judd [Apatow] and [director] Paul [Feig]. We sat down and read this script, then we did a half an hour of improv… it went really well. Kristen is so easy to work with and she’s just an amazing improviser,” he told Access.
While filming one of the movie’s funniest montages, where Kristen’s character Annie attempts to get Officer Rhodes’s attention as he sits in a car ignoring her, Chris revealed that the “SNL” star said she’d go the extra mile for the laugh.
“I’m pretty sure that at some stage Kristen suggested just peeing out the window,” he said with a laugh. “They looked into the practicality of it, and she just realized that she didn’t have the right machinery downstairs, you know, the thought was there, which was sweet.”
Making the movie with Kristen, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Ellie Kemper and Melissa McCarthy shed some light on the differences between men and women for Chris.
“It’s taught me, if I didn’t know this already, women are crazy!” Chris joked. “The competitiveness within their friendships is strange. The guys, generally, it just goes over our heads, trying to win a person over and that kind of stuff.”
Adding on a more serious note, “The film is just so relatable… it’s a very touching film and I love the relationships in it.”
Chris’ first attempt at the character included an American accent, but his native tongue helped seal the deal.
“I went in and did it with an American accent, like I do in most auditions. It went fine, but the director knew some of my work, so he asked me to do it with my accent and it worked out better,” he explained. “I think they went for it in the end because they liked the idea of it being – it was never going to be formulaic – keeping any kind of normal structure away from it by putting this accent which is somewhat askew with the rest of the story, interested them.”
Chris, his accent and his lovable character appear to be winning over audiences in a major way and the actor told Access that he snuck into a showing of the movie over the weekend to witness the audience reaction first-hand.
“It was a very strange sensation to hear myself being, ‘awed.’ It’s very odd,” he recounted.
His Twitter fans are also professing their admiration for the star, some even going so far as to Tweet marriage proposals to Chris.
“I’ve got a girlfriend,” Chris told Access when we informed him about his trending love on Twitter.
But do the actor and his ladylove possibly have their own bridal party in the future?
“There’s chatter,” Chris told Access, when asked if he and his girlfriend have any plans to wed or start a family together.
“We’re having those kind of talks, where we decided in a year’s time that we’ll have a proper talk,” he explained. “There is a very similar [marriage] chatter going on. We’re not scheduling babies and marriage, we’re scheduling talks about babies and marriages.”
Chris joked that in a year’s time, he might be open to entertaining a few of his online proposals, saying, “Tell [my Twitter followers] to call me in a year after our big chat.”
Chris will reunite with “Bridesmaids” co-stars Kristen, Maya and Jon Hamm in the upcoming “Friends with Kids,” with a release date yet to be determined.
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