Girls Trip
"The Essence of NOLA" Featurette
In our exclusive Girls Trip behind-the-scenes content, fans get an inside look into how this beloved movie came together. Though the cast is star-studded and the crew is legendary, the setting is one of the most influential parts of this film. In our Girls Trip extra, "The Essence of NOLA" that can be found under Featurettes, fans can learn how the backdrop of New Orleans provided a lot of direction and energy for this iconic movie.
New Orleans is a city that is supremely unique. Unlike many American cities, New Orleans boasts a unique blend of the old and new, giving visitors a lot of rich history alongside modern updates. This is the ideal scene for a girls’ weekend away, as we see in this Girls Trip feature.
Producer Will Packer says, "Everyone knows how much fun New Orleans is." The cast and crew know this all too well as they discuss how the setting inherently inspired the wacky, feel-good, let-loose attitude that one would want from a trip away with friends.
Bourbon Street and the French Quarter already inspire tourists and locals alike to get a little boozy and take their tops off for beads. With this background, the silly situations that the cast encounter in the movie seem less absurd, and more like naturally occurring comedy. Our Girls Trip video goes into depth about how New Orleans shaped the film.
A large part of the background is the Essence festival, which is a famous music, art, and culture festival put on by Essence magazine. The publication is primarily aimed toward African American women and provided a fantastic plot point in Girls Trip.
In this Girls Trip behind-the-scenes extra, the cast and crew discuss how they filmed during the actual festival, and their experiences doing so. Because Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Regina Hall, and Tiffany Haddish are all big stars, they received a lot of attention at the Essence festival from real attendees. However, because they were filming, the actresses had to find a balance between being big stars and still trying to remain anonymous on behalf of their characters. This Girls Trip featurette highlights their experiences striking this balance, and how the festival shaped the movie.
Though they tried overall to remain anonymous, the producers and director asked Diddy, one of the festival’s headlining performers, to single out Tiffany Haddish for the sake of the movie. However, neither Haddish nor the crew knew what Diddy had planned, and it ended up being bigger and more impactful than they could have imagined. The surprise had the whole team excited about the footage, and it added a level of excitement to the scene that otherwise would not have been there. Though Haddish herself is famous enough to attract attention from stars like Diddy, her character’s experience was likely one of the highlights of her trip.
New Orleans acted as a living, breathing backdrop for Girls Trip. The film would have been vastly different with an alternate location, and Essence provided a fantastic cultural backdrop for the women as well. If you want to learn more behind-the-scenes information about this movie, buy Girls Trip on 4k Ultra HD, Blu-rayTM, DVD, or Digital.*
*Bonus features are only available at select digital retailers. Check the retailer for details.
Like this article? Read more about the making of Girls Trip here: