In true Coen brothers fashion, the main characters find themselves in the middle of a conspiracy with … the star of Legally Blonde: The Musical.
In Drive-Away Dolls, out February 23, Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan play two queer friends who take an impromptu road trip to Tallahassee and, in true Coen brothers fashion, find themselves wrapped up in a conspiracy after coming into possession of a mysterious briefcase. The film marks Ethan Coen’s first solo feature as director, but was written with his wife, Tricia Cooke, who drew inspiration for the film from her own time at lesbian bars in the ’90s. But for a movie that includes a wall dildo, a sapphic make-out party, and a trip to the She Shed, the most queer thing in the entire film might just be the fact that the dog in the movie also played Bruiser Woods in Legally Blonde: The Musical.
“That is the absolute queerest part of this movie,” Beanie Feldstein professed at the premiere, recounting that the only way to get the dog actor to bark was to prompt it with lines from the musical’s opening number, in which Bruiser famously has a key solo. But the cast and crew didn’t know about the Chihuahua’s (whose real name is Ricky) bona fides until his trainer took on a Delta Nu sorority-girl voice to coach Ricky during one of Feldstein’s scenes. “The trainer started doing the lines to him. He was like, ‘Bruiser, where is Elle?’ And then the dog would bark, and he was like, ‘She’s trapped in the Old Valley Mill?’” And I’m supposed to be crying in the scene, and I was like how am I supposed to focus when I want to just belt out ‘Omigod You Guys’?” In Drive-Away Dolls, Ricky plays Alice, the shared pet of Jamie (Qualley) and Sukie (Feldstein), until the couple breaks up and Alice’s fate becomes uncertain. That break-up scene, in which Feldstein sobs while attempting to dismantle a “wall dildo” with a power drill, was Ricky’s big star turn.
Feldstein previously told Seth Meyers that keeping it together around Ricky during that scene was “the best acting I’ve ever done, not to laugh.” Ricky has another star turn in the film’s final scene, opposite an objectively much less iconic Matt Damon. Though not quite as impressive as Bruiser, the film’s cast also includes Pedro Pascal, Colmon Domingo, and Miley Cyrus. “I worked with Bruiser, guys,” Feldstein said. “A star was in our midst.”
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