BET will air the romantic comedy ‘Always A Bridesmaids’ on September 28 at 8pm on BET and BET Her. The film was directed by Trey Haley from a script written by actress Yvette Nicole Brown. Best known for her acting work in the NBC comedy series Community and appearances on several TV shows, this marks her screenwriting debut.
It will later air on 09/29/19 on BET VOD, BET.com, BET App, BET International.
Corina James (Javicia Leslie) has been a bridesmaid so many times that she is starting to wonder if she will ever be a bride. Deciding to no longer be a lady-in-waiting, she bravely re-enters the dating scene. Always A Bridesmaid ponders the question, ‘Is love and marriage for everyone?’ And if so, how do you get over your own stuff in order to find and keep your one? Time will only tell if Corina will Always Be A Bridesmaid or if the love of her life is around the corner.
Javicia Leslie and Jordan Calloway star in the film. Brown will play a supporting role along with Marcel Spears, Brandon Micheal Hall, Affion Crockett, Michelle Mitchenor, Bernard David Jones, Tosin Morohunfola, Meagan Tandy, James Bland, Richard Lawson, Telma Hopkins, Jasmin Brown and Amber Chardae Robison.
Blackfilm.com spoke with Brown about writing this film.
What led you to writing a screenplay for this film?
Yvette Nicole Brown: I actually wrote it 20 years ago when I was an office temp. I just wrote the film that didn’t I see. I love romantic comedies like ‘While You Were Sleeping’ When Harry Met Sally,’ but there weren’t any PG-13 films like that with black people. So I wrote what I wanted to see. So yeah, that’s the story behind it.
Did you go back and update it so that it can be more conventional with today’s period?
Yvette Nicole Brown: Yes. You have to update it otherwise you’re just filming a period piece (laughs). Twenty years ago, there was no internet. There was but it wasn’t the way we have it now. There was no social media, no cell phones. There’s a lot of things that we have now that we didn’t have back then. So you go back and you just update what needs to be updates. But I’m proud to say that the main themes and most of the main scenes stayed exactly the same from 20 years ago.
Why did it take so long before this screenplay got greenlit? Did you write other projects?
Yvette Nicole Brown: I actually wasn’t trying to write it for it to be greenlit? Like I said, I wrote it so that I would have a romantic comedy with us in mind that I could enjoy. Back in the day, we would put a DVD on to watch a movie. I know it sounds nerdy and corny, but I would just read my script whenever I wanted to revisit Mark and Corina. So it’s not like I was shopping it or whatever. It literally was written and then sat on a shelf, unless I wanted to read it. And one day I went to lunch with my wonderful friend ND Brown, who created Tridestined Studios (a great film production company) during those same 20 years. We met to talk about life and she asked me if I write and I told her that I used to. I told her I had a script from back then and she asked if she could read it. Once she finished she said she loved it and asked if she could option it and it ultimately became a film. It it wasn’t like I wrote it in and was like fighting for 20 years to get a made. I need to be fair and say that’s not the case.
Did you have any hand as far as the cast and the director?
Yvette Nicole Brown: Trey Haley, our wonderful director is also a partner in Tridestined and he’s their dedicated director whenever they do a project. So I knew going in that it probably would be Trey directing the film. If I had decided that I wanted a woman to do it or if I had another director in mind, I’m sure ND would have been open to that. But Trey is such a wonderful director that the idea of using him was just the perfect thing to do. When you see the film, you’ll see that he’s got such a great touch and is really great at just getting to the emotions of a scene and helping actors find their way. He was the perfect choice for it. As far as casting, we all cast it together. We made lists of who we wanted and we looked at reels and clips online. Our method was non-traditional, but we found the most amazing actors to fill out the cast.
As you wrote the screenplay, what did you want to stick out more the romance or the comedy?
Yvette Nicole Brown:I never thought about it but as I think about it now I probably wanted the romance to stand out more. We all have seen funny movies. They were, even back then when I wrote this, a lot of funny movies for black people. Like I said, it was that particular brand of comedy, the PG-13 romantic comedy that we didn’t have. So I wanted to create a romantic experience for these characters. But I also want people watching this to enjoy themselves. So romance was number one, comedy was number two and the drama was added just so that there is a twist, because otherwise you meet the characters and easily predict that they will get together. There should be some sort of climb towards love because that’s the way it is in real life.
When the trailer first came out, some folks may have thought that this the black version of ’27 Dresses.’ Is it?
Yvette Nicole Brown:No, because honestly, I wrote it before 27 Dresses. I wrote it so long along way before that film came out. So when 27 dresses came out, I wondered if anyone had seen my script (laughs). Mine was first. I do remember when I wrote it, I gave it to my agent and my agent had sent it around a couple of places so I wondered. Before this, no one had any stories about bridesmaids, and then all of a sudden everywhere I looked there were all these movies about bridesmaids. It felt a little suspect, but to answer your question, 27 dresses did not exist when I wrote this film.
Do you want to continue to write?
Yvette Nicole Brown:I think after this experience and how wonderful it was working with Tridestined and the actors, I think I want to do a sequel to this film, for sure. When I was writing all those years ago, I wrote like three other scripts in that period that probably could be period pieces or we could update them and shoot those as well. They’re not all romantic comedies. There’s a couple of different genres in there. I’m blessed to have a great career as an actress, and a host and a voiceover artist. I have a lot of other things that I’m doing. So I don’t have a lot of time to write like I used to and I regret that. I missed those stretches of time when I could just dive in and create a whole world of characters from my mind. I don’t have the time like that anymore.
There are a lot of speaking parts in this movie. What’s the challenge of creating so many parts to making the film flow cohesively?
Yvette Nicole Brown:Each of the characters in this script were based on someone that I knew. I’m not saying that it’s their story just that their voice and manner of speaking is the same. A lot of my friends are performers and are colorful people who have very distinct voices. So if I go out to lunch with six friends, they don’t sound alike. They don’t think about the world the same, but they all coexist at that table, right? So when I was writing, I just imagined what would each friend would say in that circumstance? What would my friends like Stacy or Buffy or Nicole or Jenean say in this circumstance? Each of those women in my mind are so unique.
So Denise, Janelle, Tamara and Corina (characters from the movie) were unique in their voices. So for me, it’s not hard. I have a writer friend who came to our premiere and we had a Q&A after and she raised her hand and asked that question. So I don’t know if maybe that’s a gift God gave me to be able to write dialogue in a way where everyone’s distinct? I don’t know. But that part wasn’t hard for me. I was channeling something bigger than me, I guess.
Where do we see you next?
Yvette Nicole Brown:I’m going to be in the live-action remake of “Lady and the Tramp” that’s coming out on the Disney+ streaming service on November 12th
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