Melissa McCarthy reveals challenge of channeling Spicer and her bonkers 'Bridesmaids' scene
There aren’t many movie comedians more versatile — or acclaimed — than Melissa McCarthy, who rose from humble Illinois origins (replete with plenty of debt) to become one of Hollywood’s most beloved A-listers. She’ll again be showing off her humorous skills in this weekend’s Life of the Party, although first, she sat with Jamie Foxx for the latest installment of Off Script, the 50-year-old Oscar winner’s new interview show premiering exclusively on Yahoo Entertainment.
The duo immediately got down to business discussing one of McCarthy’s most popular recent bits involving a former White House press secretary. “When you did Sean Spicer, you know you changed the world.” Foxx declares.
“With Spicer, I was like, ‘I don’t do impersonations. … I don’t think that’s something I can do,’ and then I was like, ‘Am I going to look like Spicer?’ And they’re like, ‘Don’t worry about that, that’ll be fine,’” says McCarthy, adding that it took the Saturday Night Live makeup guy just 12 minutes to transform her into “an old white guy.” Asked about her feelings on the state of the nation under President Trump, McCarthy strikes a more serious tone. “I hope it’s a cautionary tale,” she says. “To have everything hate- and fear-driven is not where I live.”
In their amusing, and animated, conversation, McCarthy reveals that one of the primary cinematic inspirations for her career was Steve Martin and John Candy’s 1987 classic Planes, Trains and Automobiles (“It made me laugh so hard because it’s embarrassing”), and that her own signature big-screen moment — involving a raised leg in a bathroom in 2011’s Bridesmaids — was something her collaborators found far more outrageous than she did at the time. “I didn’t think it was that weird, which shows what a weirdo I am,” she says. Her Oscar nomination for that film still strikes her as unbelievable: “I think it feels crazier now, because you never get it for comedy,” she says. But it’s clear that being funny runs in the family, as evidenced by her anecdote about her husband’s and children’s habit of pulling ludicrous pranks on her.
Check out their Off Script session above, and keep watching this space for more upcoming episodes.
