Prime Video 'Beautiful Wedding': Virginia Gardner on 'obsessive woman' trope not used in Dylan Sprouse rom-com

The story from the Beautiful Disaster movie, starring Virginia Gardner and Dylan Sprouse, has continued with Beautiful Wedding (coming to Prime Video in Canada on May 24). In the new film Abby and Travis head to Mexico for their honeymoon, with their best friends Shepley (Austin North) and America (Libe Barer), and try to figure out if they actually want to be together after their Las Vegas wedding.

As you can imagine after the first film, things get quite chaotic. But for Gardner, the actor appreciates that amid all the outlandish, outrageous and wild elements of the story, Abby is never the one "smothering" her husband. In fact, it's really Travis who's doing the smothering.

"That's one thing I really admire about Abby is she is super strong and is not afraid to set her own boundaries," Gardner told Yahoo Canada. "And she does have the tendency of running away, which in this film she has to face. She's legally bound to someone now. She has no choice but to face that fear."

"But I do think it's nice, a bit of that role reversal. This time the male is smothering the female, not that usual trope of the obsessive woman or something."

Different kind of 'balls to the wall' fighting in 'Beautiful Wedding'

In the Beautiful Disaster movie, Travis was introduced to us as a talented underground fighter, but in Beautiful Wedding Sprouse left a lot of the fighting aside.

"I do actually genuinely love that side of it, I do find it very fun, ... it's the closest I get to dancing, since I'm not a dancer," Sprouse said. "The choreography mixed with physical work, I always find very fun."

"But it was also nice to explore a different side of Travis, where he was much more grounded in having to explain himself, which I think is something that he, himself, is uncomfortable with."

There is one moment when Abby is the one doing a bit of fighting, but certainly in a less serious circumstance.

"It was as much fun as it looked," Gardner said. "Comedy is a little out of my wheelhouse, so going, for lack of a better term, balls to the wall, was nerve-wracking for me. But we certainly had a lot of fun doing it."

Dylan Sprouse and Austin North pal around, while Virginia Gardner and Kyle Richards bond

If you thought Beautiful Disaster leaned into the ridiculous for some of its comedy, that's amplified in Beautiful Wedding, including scenes where Sprouse and Austin North are together.

"Austin's my boy in real life," Sprouse said. "We hang out ever few weeks or so, especially when he's back from filming Outer Banks."

"That kind of chemistry always makes it easier. I think that there's a side to Travis which is very kind of traditionally masculine, which I wanted to make sure that we retained in this movie as well, because that's part of what people are drawn to about him. And Austin makes it very easy to do that with because we have all those kinds of interests in real life. So we can just kind of bounce off each other with that in the scenes as well."

This time around, the sequel film may attract a different audience, with a reality TV star making an appearance. 

Abby makes a new friend in Beautiful Wedding, a character played by The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Kyle Richards, who tries to give Abby so romance advice, but they end up sharing an unexpected connection.

"I really enjoyed working with her and wasn't totally sure what to expect," Gardner said, as a reality TV fan herself. "[She was] so lovely, so much fun, such a good sport and so funny."