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‘Romy And Michele’ Cameo Was Too ‘Upsetting And Humiliating’ And Other Secrets From The Cult Classic

By Jackie Villegas
Published on: 02:59 PST, Apr 28, 2017

It’s been 20 years since Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion first graced the big screen. The cult classic starred Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino as two underachieving best friends who make up a bizarre lie about their professional lives when they attend their 10-year class reunion in Tucson, Arizona.

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of Romy and Michele, the film’s director, David Mirkin, recently revealed some juicy tidbits about the ’90s comedy favorite. In a Facebook Live interview with Yahoo Movies, Mirkin revealed that a famous comedian filmed a cameo, but that the scene ended up on the cutting room floor. According to the Romy and Michele director, the scene was deemed so “upsetting and humiliating” that viewers would have a hard time coping with it.

The scene in question was one featuring Anchorman star Will Ferrell, who was on his way to becoming a huge star at the time. Mirkin recalled that Ferrell flew out from his work on Saturday Night Live to film his cameo.

“Right when Romy is found out that she didn’t invent Post-It notes and the girls are humiliating her about that, she gets a call from her cellphone that she set up with a waiter,” Mirkin said about the deleted Romy and Michele scene.

“The idea being that, with mobile phones being an ‘important’ status symbol when they initially hit the market in the 1990s, Romy would seem like a big deal by taking the call in front of her former classmates.”

“The waiter she recruited to make the call was played by Ferrell.”

“But it was so upsetting and humiliating for the audience to watch Romy get completely destroyed,” he said.

“The audience couldn’t recover from it. We had about five minutes of people still sniffing.”

Aside from the Will Ferrell cameo, Mirkin also revealed several other nostalgic tidbits about Romy and Michele. For one, he sad that Kudrow improvised many of her lines and stunts, including for the scene where she gets hit by a limo in a dream sequence. “It’s Lisa that’s rolling across the roof,” the Romy and Michele director said.

“That’s pure Lisa Kudrow.”

According to USA Today, the Romy and Michele star also ad-libbed the Post-it glue recipe in the scene with Christie (Julia Campbell).

As for Romy, Mirkin said that Sorvino crafted the character’s bizarrely deep voice as a cross between Valleyspeak and “a certain amount of Phildelphia.”

“It was part of what was wrong with the character. The way that she talked. So it was good, it was perfect.”

According to the Romy and Michele director, Romy’s manner of speaking was a very important aspect of the character and that it was the reason the part didn’t go to Muriel’s Wedding actress Toni Collette. While Collette was “terrific,” Mirkin revealed that the actress was worried about not being able to nail Romy’s accent and energy.

But other topnotch actors did make it into the film, including Alan Cumming, Janeane Garofalo, and Camryn Manheim. Interestingly, Romy and Michele also featured an early performance by Justin Theroux as a mysterious cowboy. Many years later, Theroux would become the husband of Jennifer Aniston, Kudrow’s Friends co-star.

Romy and Michele fans all over have been awaiting news of a possible sequel for years. But despite reports that Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino are willing to sign up for a Romy and Michele sequel, Mirkin said that there are currently no plans for one.

He did, however, leave the door open for a Romy and Michele Part 2. “If we had the right idea,” he said.

“It’s all a matter of whether something would hold up. You don’t want to ruin something that’s hung around like this.”

[Featured Image by Albert Ortega/Getty Images]

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