Why Brooke Shields and Her “Mother of the Bride” Costars Did Tequila Shots on Set (Exclusive)
The Netflix rom-com also features Benjamin Bratt and Miranda Cosgrove
Sasidis Sasisakulporn/Netflix
'Mother of the Bride' stars Rachael Harris, Sean Teale, Benjamin Bratt, Brooke Shields and Miranda CosgroveTo Brooke Shields, filming Mother of the Bride in Thailand felt like a vacation in some ways.
The actress and producer, 58, lived in a hotel with her costars — including Miranda Cosgrove, Benjamin Bratt, Rachael Harris and Wilson Cruz — who played pickleball and took dance lessons in their off-hours to prep for scenes in the movie.
“We just spent all our time together. We spent our days off together. We ate all our meals together,” Shields says in the new issue of PEOPLE. “We all became really good friends. It was so refreshing.”
In other ways, though, making the Netflix movie didn’t feel like a relaxing getaway at all: The cast spent long days filming for two months, the heat was oppressive, and everybody “was so tired,” says Shields.
So on the final night of work, Shields called for shots before they filmed a big dance number at the wedding scene.
Sasidis Sasisakulporn/Netflix
Brooke Shields and Miranda Cosgrove in 'Mother of the Bride'“We had been filming for so long and we had to do this last scene. We had reached our limit. And I was like, ‘You know what? We're all doing a shot of tequila! That's exactly what we're doing right now, and then we're going to go have to do this dance sequence.’ So, it was just fun,” recalls Shields.
Asked if the tequila helped with the dancing, Shields quips, “tequila usually helps with most things.”
“By the time we got to the final day of filming everybody was going back to their real lives the next day. I think we were just so relieved and exhausted, and just happy that we made it that far,” she adds.
In the romantic comedy, Shields plays widowed scientist Lana Winslow, whose daughter (Cosgrove) gets engaged to the son (Sean Teale) of her former college flame (Bratt). Lana only learns of her ex’s connection to her soon-to-be son-in-law when she’s already abroad for the destination wedding.
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Shields, who starred on the NBC sitcom Suddenly Susan from 1996 to 2000, was excited to get back to what she calls her “comedy roots.”
Indeed, the movie is a showcase for her pratfalls, like tumbling into a pond or struggling to get into an elaborate mother of the bride dress she’s instructed to wear.
The latter scene nearly didn’t make it into the movie, since the crew was tight on time and the sequence doesn’t advance the plot, explains Shields.
Sasidis Sasisakulporn/Netflix
Brooke Shields and Benjamin Bratt in 'Mother of the Bride'Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
“There was an argument to just stop, wrap and be done,” she says. “And I just begged: I begged the director. I begged the crew. I was like, “I promise I'll do it in one take. Give me two cameras. I'll do it in one take. Just keep the cameras on me, get the angles that you need.”
She nailed it and the scene made it in. “When you have those moments of levity, it then just makes the payoff of the emotional scenes that much more resonant because you've shown the complexities of life,” she explains.
Mother of the Bride streams May 10 on Netflix.
For more on Brooke Shields, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE.
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