There is a lot to love about Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar, the new Lionsgate comedy starring Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo. From the kitschy Florida set design to those thick Nebraska accents to the cartoonishly evil plot that best friends Barb (Mumolo) and Star (Wiig) find themselves caught up in, we just can't get enough of this side-splitting romp. But, if we had to choose one part of Barb and Star which stands out as the best of the best, it would have to be "Edgar's Prayer," a musical number performed by Edgar (Jamie Dornan), Star's love interest.
On Friday, Uproxx published an oral history about "Edgar's Prayer," with Mumolo (who also serves as a producer and co-writer on Barb & Star), Dornan, and director Josh Greenbaum. Everything about "Edgar's Prayer" is covered in this oral history, from the origins of the song to the trickiest parts of filming the musical number. One of the most fascinating takeaways from this oral history is Mumolo's confirmation that an extended cut of the "Edgar's Prayer" scene exists, which opened up the door for Greenbaum and Dornan to discuss what was included in that longer version.
Mumolo began by telling Uproxx, "I don’t know if Jamie already said this, but it was longer. It was much longer. Jamie did a bunch of other stuff. For a time we had to trim it. If it were up to us, it would have been a 10-minute thing," which led Greebaum to clarify that "it’s not 10 [minutes] but there’s definitely… I feel like there’s another minute we cut out."
From there, Mumolo, Greenbaum, and Dornan revealed what activities Edgar was doing in the longer version of the scene which they (devastatingly) had to cut from the final version of the movie. Greenbaum shared with Uproxx that "it was like a montage of all the things where he started singing, running, skipping, dreaming, sleeping, eating, thinking. It’s just a quick montage of all these actions he’s doing but some of them are incredibly banal like napping."
To this, Dornan added, "Oh my God. There was reading, crying, sunbathing," which led Mumolo to chime in with, " [he's] eating a hamburger," and Greenbaum added that Edgar also did "kicking — he did karate kicks!"
Mumolo also revealed that the "Edgar's Prayer" musical number took place over a longer period of time within the movie's narrative timeline. She remarked that "it was all [Edgar] being very emotional. Doing all these things, like he’s eating emotionally, he’s sleeping emotionally. Yeah, it’s been passage of time of all his feelings, but this was more over the course of a day. Now it’s more of this one moment."
So, with all of this exciting new information out in the world, will Barb & Star fans ever get to see the extended version of this scene? To this, Greenbaum commented, "I’d love to release the footage," and went on to offer a bit of hope, saying, "It’s always that weird thing of all of the editorial is shut down, but we should try to find it somewhere. It’s very funny and there’s stuff in there that I think people would really enjoy."
Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar is now available to rent on demand.