Congratulations to the lovely and talented Melissa McCarthy for her Emmy win last night. McCarthy and I had a thoroughly enjoyable lunch together a few weeks ago, at which we ordered more fried food than we intended to. You can read a short excerpt at the Rolling Stone website, or check out the George Harrison issue, which just migrated off newsstands (flip it over for “comedy’s new wave”). Something that didn’t make it into the piece: physical injury in the pursuit of comedy.

Her greatest moment of Groundlings glory: breaking her nose onstage. “I wrote this scene where I was trying to make my coworker jealous, so I kept sending myself balloons and flowers.” She was supposed to do a seductive dance with a mylar balloon, and then pop it, so the scene could begin. Except, McCarthy discovered during a preview performance, mylar doesn’t pop easily. “This five-second dance turned into two and a half minutes that felt like an hour, of me in a full sweat, my wig half-off, punching this balloon. I was holding it against my face and diving onto the stage. The eighth time, it popped–and I slammed my face into the stage.” The upside? “The scene got in the show!” she says brightly.

posted 19 September 2011 in Articles, Links and tagged Emmys, Melissa McCarthy, Rolling Stone. no comments yet