Jennifer Lopez as Darcy Rivera and Josh Duhamel as Tom Fowler in Shotgun Wedding. Photo Credit: Ana Carballosa
Courtney Howard // Film Critic
One soon-to-be-married couple is confronted with the “for better or worse” part of their vows far sooner than expected in director Jason Moore’s SHOTGUN WEDDING. Darcy (Jennifer Lopez) and Tom (Josh Duhamel) are planning a lavish, luxurious destination wedding in the Philipinnes when a group of pirates hijacks the event, forcing the pair to resort to unplanned killer actions in order to rescue friends and family. This funny feature embraces all the highs and lows of wedding planning in an action-packed, entertaining and hilarious manner.
For co-star Lenny Kravitz, who plays Darcy’s ex-fiancee crashing the wedding unexpectedly, speaking from the film’s recent virtual press conference, he relished being able to play in a comedy, viewing acting as an entirely different methodology than creating music.
“I get to collaborate, work with people, serve a character, serve a script and a director. When I make my music, I’m primarily in the studio by myself, playing the instruments, writing, producing. It’s my thing. It’s my expression.”
He continues,
“It’s a great relief to then go and work with people and have it not be about me and how I want it. But to be there to serve the character, the director, the script – and to be with beautiful people. I love that.”
Lopez, no stranger to the concert music stage herself, says she enjoyed the connection between her evolving character and her fluffy wedding dress, which, throughout the course of the film, is in a state of flux.
“I really felt like the dress itself was like a character in the movie, but also really represented what she was going through. I wanted it to start out where she was super uncomfortable. And then as she went on, and was more honest with Tom about who she was and what she wanted, [it was] peeling back the layers and becoming more herself and stepping into her own power – more of her authenticity.”
She further explains,
“That happened with the dress as well. It was the biggest, most cumbersome, beautiful, but not her at all, [dress]. Pieces started coming off and by the end, she’s this badass and taken off the hair extensions and she has a gun and is like, ‘Alright, now! Everybody listen to me. This is how it’s going to be.’ We had it basically in stages throughout the whole entire thing. It was very calculated, for sure.”
For most of the film, the wedding/ hotel guests are held up in the pool, wet and miserable – Kravitz going so far as to call it “a stew.” Cheech Marin, who plays Darcy’s billionaire father, had a good sense of humor about it.
“The only thing I regretted was I should’ve read the script a lot closer, where it said, ‘They go in the pool’ …and we were there for 21 days. I was just hoping that all my body parts would go back to their original shape, you know. A year and a half later, I’m still hoping.”
Jennifer Coolidge, who plays the mother-of-the-groom Carol, mentions they all laughed about it then and now.
“There were a lot of pool jokes because we were in the pool for a long time. Didn’t seem like they were changing the water as much as we would’ve liked. That was the best combination of people – everyone got along. There was not one weird thing.”
D’Arcy Carden, who plays the new, young girlfriend of Darcy’s father, agrees.
“Yeah, we were soggy. Oddly, that was one of the most fun parts. If someone said, ‘You have to live with your castmates,’ you’d probably go, ‘huh?!’ But it was really wonderful and bonding and special – especially during the pandemic where we weren’t really working as much and making new friends. Just a bunch of scrappy, weird actors eating dinner together every night. Every bit of it was dreamy.”
Kravitz says the experience was like no other.
“We all really enjoyed being with each other. We lived together. We enjoyed the process together and it was a lot of fun in a very surreal time in this world, in the beginning of COVID. We got to go to the Dominican Republic and be creative. We all had a lot of gratitude.”
Selena Tan, who plays the resort manager, sets the scene perfectly.
“It really felt like we were a little family working on a family project. We had Lenny Kravitz playing music for us when we sat in the Jacuzzi. Life doesn’t get better.”
Moore concurs.
“It was like camp or a dorm. This was heaven. There were days where we were working hard and I felt like I was on vacation.”
Callie Hernandez, who plays Darcy’s screw-up sister, says the cast had a great time on their off-hours, bonding while watching each others’ movies.
“I forced Steve Coulter to moderate Q&As for movies. We watched Sonia Braga’s films: KISS OF THE SPIDERWOMAN and MOON OVER PARADOR. We watched Coolidge’s films. We watched BEST IN SHOW. We watched UP IN SMOKE, because of Cheech. That was a blast.”
Steve Coulter, who plays Tom’s father, explains further.
“I was the Robert Osbourne of the Q&A’s. Cheech and I napped together every afternoon. He’s a really interesting person. He’s been meditating for like 47 years. We’d always have a chat and have a nap together and people would come take pictures of us.”
SHOTGUN WEDDING is available exclusively on Prime Video on January 27.
