‘You’re Cordially Invited’s Meredith Hagner and Geraldine Viswanathan on Will Ferrell’s Big Dad Energy

For over three decades, Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon have been two of the biggest names in Hollywood. Now, they’re pitted against each other in You’re Cordially Invited, a fun new comedy that explores all of what could possibly go wrong when a wedding venue accidentally double-books two weddings from two very different families.

Written and directed by Nicholas Stoller, who’s known for Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Neighbors, Get Him to the Greek, Yes Man, and the Apple TV+ series Platonic, You’re Cordially Invited follows Will Ferrell’s Jim, a single father who would do anything and everything for his daughter Jenni (Geraldine Viswanathan), who, to his surprise (and chagrin), just got engaged. The parallel storyline follows Reese Witherspoon’s Margot, a tightly-wound, means-business reality TV producer who wants her sister Neve (Meredith Hagner) to have the best wedding ever (while also dealing with their eccentric southern family). When Margot and Jim realize they both have a wedding booked for the same weekend, things get pretty ugly pretty fast.

Hagner and Viswanathan, who play the brides-to-be in the action-packed comedy, are no strangers to the genre. Hagner brilliantly played the role of Portia Davenport for five seasons in the cult-comedy series Search Party, as well as Palm Springs with Andy Samberg and Bad Monkey with Vince Vaughn on Apple TV+. Viswanathan starred alongside Margaret Qualley in Ethan Coen’s R-rated crime comedy Drive-Away Dolls, the anthology series Miracle Workers, recent Sundance selection Oh, Hi!, and has joined the MCU for the upcoming Thunderbolts*, which hits theaters in May.

During this interview with Collider, Geraldine Viswanathan and Meredith Hagner describe what kind of director Stoller is, what it was like filming a sexually-charged duet with Ferrell, the legacy of Search Party, and why coming to set every day for You’re Cordially Invited never felt like going to work.

Meredith Hagner Looks Back on Acting Alongside John Early in ‘Search Party’

Hagner shares her “happiest comedy nerd memory” from a cut scene.

COLLIDER: Before we get into this movie, which was so much fun, I want to ask Meredith a question. I’m a big Search Party fan.

MEREDITH HAGNER: Aw, thank you.

GERALDINE VISWANATHAN: Me too.

I’m sure you hear that a lot. I have two quick questions for that. One, do you have a favorite memory with John Early? And two, when you first found out how the final season was going to go, what was your immediate reaction?

HAGNER: It is so weird talking about Search Party, I’m like, “John, I miss you.” My favorite, I mean, God, John Early and I have had so many… it’s like Will Ferrell and John Early to me, two of the comedy greats. God, I don’t know. There was one scene that honestly, I swear to God, didn’t even make it. I think about it all the time when we were improv-ing about how, because I thought I was in love with Dory, I think, in the last season. We were having this thing and he’s like, “Are you gay?” And I’m like, “Well, are you gay?” And he’s like, “Well, are you gay?” And we had this five minute back and forth where I was like, “Well, then I’m gay.” And it didn’t make it on, but I swear to God, that’s my happiest comedy nerd memory. And then when I saw the last season, every year the writers, [Sarah-Violet Bliss] and Charles [Rogers], geniuses, just topped it and topped it and topped it. And the fact that they just broke all the rules and just kept getting bigger and crazier was like, yeah, of course we were responsible for basically the end of the world. That’s how it had to go.

Exactly.

HAGNER: It started at brunch, being self-obsessed. We ultimately destroyed the world.

Nicholas Stoller’s ‘You’re Cordially Invited’ Is a Massive, Fun Comedy

The throughline’s right there. Well, amazing show. Thank you, and I love John as well. So this movie was super fun, and between the two of you, you’ve worked with such comedic masterminds like Bill Lawrence, Michael Showalter, Simon Rich, Ethan Coen. So with Nicholas Stoller, continuing the trend here with comedic geniuses, what did you learn from Nicholas on this film and what was his directing style like?

VISWANATHAN: Oh, he was just so, he’s just so smart. And I think it’s such a feat to write this script that has so many characters. It’s such a massive ensemble. And I feel like every character is so defined and gets to shine. And like you really… their journeys are so clear. I think that that is like such a difficult thing to do, and he is such a brilliant writer and director as well. He just, I don’t know. He just made it so fun.

HAGNER: I know.

VISWANATHAN: How does he make it look easy? This was a massive movie.

HAGNER: He’s so kind too.

VISWANATHAN: Yeah.

HAGNER: He directs with such ease. He knows it, he mapped it, he gets it. And then I feel like he’s one of those directors that’s like, “I hired the people and I let them do their job and I keep us on track.” But he’s so mathematically, comedically gifted. His sharpness is unparalleled and you feel it in the movie. I mean, he’s a quick mind.

There’s a lot of moving parts and I feel like he keeps it all in the air really well. And this movie is about obviously two weddings booked on the same weekend. Do either of you have any “wedding gone wrong stories,” whether you’re a guest or just any chaotic wedding stories yourself?

VISWANATHAN: I haven’t gone to many weddings, honestly.

HAGNER: You haven’t?

VISWANATHAN: No, I’ve been to two.

HAGNER: What?

VISWANATHAN: I know.

HAGNER: The hell, we gotta get you some weddings.

VISWANATHAN: I know. I can’t wait.

HAGNER: My wedding was, like, wonderfully chaotic. I do feel like there was some… oh, God, this is going to get picked up… but no, there was some like mushrooms that went around.

VISWANATHAN: Whoa! That’s so fun.

HAGNER: So there was, I’m not going to say, but… there were some people that I want to say like started to hallucinate and we were like, “What’s happening? Oh, okay. Okay.” And then we danced until so late that the DJs were like… they started playing “New York, New York,” that was their like exit song. They were trying to get everybody gone. And then we didn’t leave.

Geraldine Viswanathan Says Will Ferrell Is the “Ultimate Dad”

Wow. I want to see that movie now. That sounds really fun. In this movie, Will Ferrell has BDE: Big Dad Energy.

VISWANATHAN: Whoa. Thank you for clarifying.

Of course. What was it like for him to be your dad in this film, Geraldine, and especially the very interesting duet that you two had to coordinate?

VISWANATHAN: Yeah. Strange choice. Um, it was, I mean, yeah, so surreal that Will Ferrell was my dad. He’s such a tall teddy bear of a man. It’s really fun to pretend to be his daughter. He’s just the funniest man in the world. He’s one of those people that like everything he says is funny when he’s not trying to be funny. I’m laughing. He’s like, “What are you laughing at?” I’m like, “Sorry, everything you say is funny.” But he’s also just like the best and like a really great dad. Fun fact, his son has a song in the movie, Magnus Ferrell. He is the song that plays, uh, when Oliver is DJing at the wedding.

HAGNER: I did not know that!

VISWANATHAN: Yeah, that was really cool. He’s just, he’s the best. He’s like the ultimate dad.

Wow. That’s really cool. I didn’t know that either about the song, that’s really neat. Comedies look like a lot of fun when you’re watching it, but a lot of work goes into them. What would maybe surprise people about what goes into making a really good comedy?

HAGNER: This one felt easy to me. I was like, I would actually have paid to do this one. Um, and every day was like, “Yep! Gotta go to work. Oh my God! It’s so fun!” It was also like a bigger budget than I feel like I’m used to. (Laughs).

VISWANATHAN: Yeah, for sure.

HAGNER: The food was really good.

VISWANATHAN: The crafty was popping.

HAGNER: God bless you, Amazon. Um, but yeah, it was, I mean, it’s just like, I don’t know. I feel like the one thing I’ve learned is like, if you’re having fun, then people are… it’s a basic ass answer.

VISWANATHAN: It’s kind of a party. Being in a wedding dress the whole time, mine was really itchy. Made of this, like, weird itchy material. And my makeup was insane. I was really, at the end of the day, I was happy to take off my lashes and my itchy dress, but, um, you know, really can’t complain. It was just like a really fun summer in Atlanta when we shot that. Because everybody was just the coolest. So it just kind of felt like summer camp.

Art Imitated Life for Meredith Hagner While Filming ‘You’re Cordially Invited’

HAGNER: I got pregnant on the movie and I was trying to get pregnant for a little while and my character was pregnant. And then I like, I haven’t told anybody this. I haven’t even told my… I probably shouldn’t even say this. My husband will be like, “What?” But I brought a pregnancy test to work. Cause you know, you’re there all the time. And I was like, “My God, I think I was supposed to get a period.” TMI, but I was like, “I’m going to bring this to work.” And so I peed in the trailer and they were like, “Meredith, we need you in hair and makeup!” And I was like, “Oh my God.” And then I went in and I was like — I was literally one second pregnant — and I was like, “I’m not going to say anything. I’m not going to say anything.” I was like, “I’m pregnant!” Leanne Morgan was like, “Oh my God!”

VISWANATHAN: Oh my God!

HAGNER: Isn’t that funny?

VISWANATHAN: That’s crazy.

HAGNER: So I don’t know. Then by the end of the movie, I started vomiting and I had to finally tell Reese. I’m like, “I am throwing up. I’m not hung over. I am pregnant.” So yeah.

VISWANATHAN: It’s literally like the movie.

HAGNER: Yeah. It’s like the movie. I’m so method.

I was going to say, you’re really committed to the character.

HAGNER: Yeah I commit babe. I commit.

When you’re first getting to know a character, you know, when you read a script, do you have a process when you get a script, like how you connect with your character?

HAGNER: This is going to sound so like, “My craft…” Everyone’s butthole, just, like clenched. But I just am like, where can I find the parallel to myself? Because I think of every character is like… having me having gone down like a different path. So I always find like, what’s the connection? And this one, actually, I play a lot of psychos. So this was actually much closer to me as a person. I’d like to think so. It felt easy for me in a weird way where I was like, “Oh.” Then I kept trying to make her like unhinged. And I think Nick was like, “No, no, no, she’s normal. She’s just a nice, lovely voice of reason of the movie.” I’m like, “I’m so sorry. What?” What about you? What’s your process, babe?

VISWANATHAN: My process? I’m like, I don’t know, maybe I feel like I heard this in an acting class once… “the inner need of the character.” We had to find that. And that was kind of easy for Jenni, because, you know, it’s just her and Will. So I think that scene that we have on the bed where we talk about my mom who passed away when I was young.

HAGNER: Gorgeous work.

VISWANATHAN: Oh, thanks. It was just I think that’s the crux of like, Jenni and how she’s sort of scrambling for love and purpose in a place in the world without much true guidance. When I read the character, she broke my heart a little bit.

HAGNER: I’m sorry, Geraldine’s ability to vacillate between screwball, comedic, crazy eyes like you’ve never seen. And then like deeply heartbreaking is a one of a kind thing.

VISWANATHAN: Bless your heart. Ditto girl.

Wonderful answers and, unfortunately, I have to wrap soon. But I’m just going to squeak in one more question. Geraldine, you’re in Thunderbolts*. Kind of going to be a big deal. And Wyatt Russell, your husband, Meredith, is in it. Is there anything you could tease about Thunderbolts*?

HAGNER: He would murder me. I’m sworn to secrecy. I’m putting my head down.

VISWANATHAN: (Laughs). I know. We’re both really bad at keeping secrets, so we’re like, “Don’t ask us about this!” No, I mean, Wyatt Russell, yeah, has a cameo in this film, which is quite fun. The Meredith Hagner universe. But no, all I can say is I play Mel. I’m Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ assistant. And I’m really excited for people to see it.

All right, very cool. Thank you both. It was so nice to meet you.

HAGNER: So nice. Thanks for the great questions.

You’re Cordially Invited is available to stream on Prime Video.