What happens when the Target lady takes off her uniform?
Kristen Wiig is not only looking to open up in her new dramatic roles, but she’s about to bare it all — literally. In the August cover story for Elle, the Saturday Night Live alum, 40, dished about her new role as Alice Klieg — a woman with a borderline personality disorder who wins the lottery, quits taking her medication, and starts her own talk show — in the film Welcome to Me.
“I’d never read a character like that,” she said of Alice in Elle. “I got to a scene where it read, ‘She’s fully naked,’ and I remember thinking: If I do this movie, I have to do this scene, because it’s really important to this script.”
While she’s known for comedic hits like 2011’s Bridesmaids, Wiig is taking on more serious parts in deeper dramas, like this year’s The Skeleton Twins.
“It’s not necessarily a bad thing. You have to have some sort of context for a person to register in your brain, and I was introduced to the world as a cast member of SNL,” she said of being associated with comedies. “But I’ve always wanted to do dramatic stuff, to write and direct, do a lot of different things. Comedy is where my heart lies, but there’s also something really satisfying about being able to step away with a small crew, become a character and get to know her for a few months at a time.”
Welcome to Me comes out later this year, and The Skeleton Twins (which costars fellow SNL alum Bill Hader) premieres on Sept. 19.
