Sometimes you gotta lose some to win some. That’s the early story that played out for Rebel Wilson, who revealed she actually lost money with her breakout role in Bridesmaids.
The 44-year-old actress appeared on the Diary of a CEO podcast with Steven Bartlett, who brought up that Wilson wrote in her headline-making memoir, Rebel Rising, that she only got paid $3,500 for her role in the 2011 comedy. As if that amount wasn’t already pretty minuscule for what turned out to be a smash hit, Wilson said that between paying her union dues and then using the rest of that money to pay for a dress to attend the movie’s premiere, she ended up in the red.
“That was my first job in America. I was very lucky to get it. I mean, what an awesome cracker of a movie, to get that but to be paid that little. And basically that $3,500, I then had to pay to the union to join the union,” said Wilson, who portrayed Brynn, the sister of Matt Lucas’ character, Gil. “So, basically, I made no money. I lost money because I had to pay to go to the premiere to buy my dress and everything. So, I lost money doing Bridesmaids.”
When the film came out, it became a huge success. But between wrapping the film and the movie’s release, Wilson said she struggled financially.
“That was a really skint year where I was living on $60 a week in L.A. once I paid my rent and my car hire, and that’s not a lot of money,” she added. “So I wasn’t partying or living this life. It was basically just having that focus trying to write for myself, going to auditions and I had to wait a whole year until Bridesmaids came out and then suddenly it comes out there’s this big hit.”
And the rest was history. Wilson said she booked six movies off the back of Bridesmaids, including her iconic role in the Pitch Perfect franchise, which she referred to as her “real golden ticket.” The film series would go on to become the highest-grossing musical comedy franchise of all time.
Wilson shared in 2021 that her role in Bridesmaids was only added after she didn’t land the main role.
“My character wasn’t supposed to exist in the movie. I’d auditioned for Melissa McCarthy‘s character and was the second choice for that role,” Wilson said of McCarthy’s character, Megan, while on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show. “I guess they liked my audition and added me into the film, essentially, so there was never supposed to be two roommates, only one. So I just kind of added myself in a way to the scenes.”
For the role, Wilson had also previously shared that she got a fake tattoo of a “Mexican drinking worm” (after they couldn’t get the rights to hip-hop Garfield). And the tattoo proved challenging for her hygiene as she tried to keep it from rubbing off.
“I only filmed Bridesmaids for one week, and for the whole week I had to wrap myself in cling wrap around the torso area so that I could have that tattoo in case I wanted to refer to it,” she noted. “We only used it on the first day, but just in case. So I didn’t really shower properly that whole week of Bridesmaids.”
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