Melissa McCarthy: ‘I didn’t ruin your childhood’
Actor Melissa McCarthy on the backlash to the Ghostbusters remake, being “blown away” by Chris Hemsworth, the toughest lesson she learned in stand-up comedy and why she wondered if anyone would find Bridesmaids funny.
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Actor Melissa McCarthy on the backlash to the Ghostbusters remake, being “blown away” by Chris Hemsworth, the toughest lesson she learned in stand-up comedy and why she wondered if anyone would find Bridesmaids funny.
You were very much loved as Sookie St. James on Gilmore Girls [2000—2007]. When you look back at the show, what comes to mind?
Fire retardant pants and pregnancy bellies [laughs]. I learnt a lot on that show and we had a really good time making it. Gilmore Girls was my first regular job and the fact it went seven years... that is still shocking to me.
I loved working with Lauren [Graham], Yanic [Truesdale], Kelly Bishop, Ed Herrmann and Alexis [Bledel].
When you were making Bridesmaids eight years ago, did you and your co-stars have any idea how big it was going to be?
No, I don’t think you ever know. We thought, well it was funny to us, it was making us laugh, but I remember thinking I wonder if anyone else is going to find this funny.
What do you think looking back on the hysteria and backlash to the all-female line-up in the 2016 Ghostbusters remake?
I’m always astonished when people are so quick to lash out negatively. I feel a little bit sorry for those people because I think happy people don’t stay up till 3am online saying, “You’re ruining my childhood.”
But I also have a sneaking suspicion that they didn’t have a great childhood — and I’m not the one who ruined it.
You also worked with Australia’s Chris Hemsworth on Ghostbusters. What was that like?
It was terrible [laughs]. No, I’m kidding. He is such a delight; he is so funny that I was a bit blown away.
He’s truly, truly to his core so funny and he’s such a good improviser that we ruined a lot of takes with the rest of us laughing at him.
And he’s such a sweetheart, too. I just thought, “Well, this isn’t fair, you can’t have it all! You can’t just be good at everything.” But he is.
Your new film The Kitchen centres on three women who become mobsters and shows a very rough side of New York City in the 1970s. Did you know this side of Hell’s Kitchen when you lived there in the ’90s?
My first apartment was in Hell’s Kitchen and it was still a pretty rough place. I had a heroin dealer living above me. But even I got the cleaned-up version. It was a lot rougher in the 70s. I still looked behind me when I walked home.
Speaking of, there’s a line in the film about how no woman goes through life feeling safe. Do you agree with that statement?
No. I mean, I would never agree with an overall sweeping statement that no woman feels safe. I’d probably say at some point every woman feels scared. Maybe that’s arguing semantics, or maybe that just makes my heart feel better as a mother of two girls.
Were you thrilled to discover Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss were your co-stars?
Oh my god, yes. What lunatic would say no? I am such a big fan of both of them and I thought the combination of us together made so much sense in my head for those parts.
It was just really easy. The first time we were all on set together it clicked straight away and we had such a good time doing it.
You’re now 48 — and in the ’90s and early noughties these kinds of movies would usually cast actresses aged in their 20s as the leads. Would you agree?
Probably. I think it goes through stages and there were times when to be the lead, you had to be 20. Not all the time, I never want to discredit all the amazing roles people have done.
But you know there was an overall tendency for sure, and then mob movies were so often told from a male point of view.
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What’s the biggest lesson you learnt doing stand-up comedy in your 20s?
That it wasn’t for me. There was a traumatic quality to it — there was always somebody in the audience who wanted to heckle me. Half the time before I even opened my mouth, somebody was yelling something at me and the only way to quiet that person is to make jokes at their expense.
So what you have to do is humiliate this person just to make them be quiet. That’s not what I signed up to do and at the end of those nights I didn’t like how it felt.
You also have a fashion label in production. What inspired you to take that on?
I love fashion, I love everything about it. I think you should have fun with your clothes and I think clothes should make women feel really good.
That’s the whole reason I do it. I think of fashion kind of like our armour; you can put it on and feel good about yourself.
What would you like to know your two daughters have learnt from you?
Oh god, so much. I hope at the end they feel how loved they are. I hope they feel their own sense of pride, where they can take their place in the world, and do it kindly and strongly.
The Kitchen is in cinemas from Thursday, August 29.
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