Melissa McCarthy was honoured with a star on the Walk of Fame earlier this week. Photo / AP
Melissa McCarthy was honoured with a star on the Walk of Fame earlier this week. Photo / AP
Melissa McCarthy has become Hollywood's go-to gal for big screen comedy. She talks to Michele Manelis.
Spy is a movie which stars Jude Law as a suave James Bond archetype, Rose Byrne as a Bulgarian arms dealer, and veteran action man Jason Statham as a tough guy agent.
But the real star of this show is Melissa McCarthy. The action comedy casts her as deskbound CIAstaffer Susan Cooper thrown into the field and doing espionage the only way she knows how.
It nicely parallels McCarthy's own career. She's taken over Hollywood comedy by stealth. Though she's had some help -
Clearly, Feig has a knack for female-driven comedy.
McCarthy nods a resounding "yes" in response. "He just doesn't give a damn about what you should do, or who should be the lead, or what music should be in it. He's a true creative artist, thank God, and he is one person manning the ship. Paul stays the course to his vision and yet he's very collaborative," she says. "And best thing on top of it, whoever he casts he believes in them 1000 per cent. He is your biggest cheerleader."
The success of Bridesmaids provided Hollywood executives with an epiphany of sorts - the notion that women and edgy comedic fare need not be mutually exclusive.
Of course there have always been romantic comedies, invariably starring vehicles for the likes of Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon or Cameron Diaz. But more often than not, these so-called comedies aren't particularly funny. Refreshingly, and without calculation, McCarthy's refusal to fit the mould has opened up a genre for women.
"Comedies for women are really opening up in a fantastic way. Women with very specific and different voices have always existed but for some reason we went back to some kind of puritanical era where women should only be shown in a perfect dress, with perfect makeup, saying nice things, who are not able to be the least bit objectionable," says McCarthy.
"I don't mean you should be having a bar fight and swearing nonstop, I just mean you can't be perfect and funny; it doesn't work. I don't know any of these perfect women. They're not in my family or my group of friends. You need some obstacles in your character; either you're a little neurotic, or needy or hyper or maybe you're a slob. You have to have some kind of flaw to make it funny. Those character traits are usually tools which have always been given to men. Now it seems women are getting some of those traits back."
Watch the trailer for Spy here:
Without question, McCarthy's success has also opened doors for other ambitious, motivated female comedians who don't look like Aniston or Diaz, women like Lena Dunham and, most recently, Amy Schumer.
"This is not news. Since the dawn of time, women have never not been funny," she says. She also knows that the more success her accidental proteges enjoy, the better the landscape for every comparable actor. But mostly, she's just supportive of other women.
"I can't wait to see Amy Schumer's movie Trainwreck," she says with genuine enthusiasm. "I hope it does well." Since Bridesmaids raked in a whopping US$289 million internationally, McCarthy remains the go-to actress best able to deliver irreverent humour authentically.
"Bridesmaids was a turning point. It made a really, really huge impact because it made money. It showed real women having real relationships; yes they were in extreme circumstances but the women were all real, and I bought every one of them. The fact that that movie made that kind of money meant Hollywood couldn't ignore it."
McCarthy and Sandra Bullock in The Heat.
Case in point, she followed with The Heat, starring alongside Sandra Bullock, which took in US$230 million.
But not all comedies are created equal and not everything McCarthy touches has turned to box office gold.
She has endured a couple of high-profile misfires, namely Identity Thief, although a commercial success, taking in over US$174 million, it didn't fare well critically. And last year's Tammy, which took in US$100 million and was her first collaboration with husband Ben Falcone (the couple co-wrote the film, he directed it) was, to all intents and purposes, a flop.
"I love Tammy. It's the little troubled story that we wanted to tell. It got such a strange reaction although I have people stopping me all the time saying they liked it." Her smile fades. "Most of the negative stuff was about me, or our marriage, or how I looked. Ultimately, I came to think that none of that stuff means anything to me and I knew that I can't let any of that affect me."
How does she account for the level of mean-spiritedness directed at her?
In Spy, Melissa McCarthy plays a CIA analyst who volunteers to go undercover as an agent.
"Sadly, I think people really feel unheard. I have two kids and I think about it a lot. If you need attention make it the right attention, do it for something amazing. We've become a world where the nastiest comments get all these reactions and people get noticed for being horrible," she says.
"I would be embarrassed to say things like that to another person but somehow we're missing that embarrassment chip and it encourages people to be nastier and to tear people down," she says.
"God, I can't wait until that goes away. I hope it's cyclical and we'll stop patting people on the back for being mean."
Undeterred, the McCarthy-Falcone team rolls on. Their next project, Michelle Darnell, is another comedy they co-wrote, with Falcone at the helm as director once more.
"Ben and I just wrapped it. Michelle Darnell is the 47th wealthiest woman in the world and a complete narcissist," she laughs. "She's really not a good person and she ends up in jail." Some may say that working with one's significant other might put some undue pressure on a marriage but apparently not so for McCarthy.
"I love that I get to go to work with my husband. I don't want to watch the Food Network all day, although I do love the Food Network. But if I have the chance to work with Ben, get up at 5am, put on a wig and be a lunatic, hell yeah. It's a blast."
Actress Melissa McCarthy. Photo / Getty Images
As well as returning to sitcom Mike and Molly for a sixth season, McCarthy re-teams with Paul Feig in the highly anticipated all-female reboot of Ghostbusters. Rounding out the quartet are Kristin Wiig and fellow Saturday Night Live players Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones.
For Ghostbusters purists, the notion of four actresses replacing the 80s foursome, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson, is next to blasphemous.
She laughs. "Yes, it's a biggie to take on. There are a lot of devout fans but I have faith in Paul. And it's a reboot, we're not redoing it. I don't think you can redo that movie. To take the concept and really launch it in a different way and make it modern is a great idea. I can't wait to be with those women," she smiles. "I couldn't have picked four ladies better than what Paul chose."
But, meanwhile, back to Spy, could it be that the movie is merely a front to make the world feel safer about US intelligence gathering?
"No, not to my knowledge. I don't think Spy was funded by the government." She leans forward. "Or was it?"
