You know what happens when you take funny lady Melissa McCarthy, dress her up as legendary drag queen and director John Waters‘ cinematic muse Divine, then get her into a photoshoot with Pandora Boxx and Mimi Imfurst? Magic. Magic happens. And that’s what Entertainment Weekly decided to do with their upcoming comedy issue, because SURPRISE! There is a God.
Bridesmaids, Mike & Molly, and a winning SNL gig have turned Melissa McCarthy into a red-hot star, as well as the cover girl for our 2011 Comedy Issue. EW sat down with the hilarious McCarthy for a little steak, a bunch of drinks, and an unexpected amount of tears. “Comedy to me is all about the bumps and bruises and weird tics,” says McCarthy. “It’s everything you find out about somebody when you fall in love with them that on paper is really creepy but you find adorable.”
When McCarthy was a teenager at an all-girls Catholic school in Plainfield, Ill., she stunned her mild-mannered parents by diving deep into a wickedly surly goth phase. “There was a three-year chunk as a teen where I should have been tranquilized and put in a cage,” she says. If her daughters ever try to pull some of the crap she did in high school, she has a plan. “I will embarrass my kids to their core. I will threaten to show up in hot pants and a tube top. Their dad will drive me. And he’ll let me and my friend Lisa get pretty drunk in the backseat and we will come into that party and just rip it up.”
I’m not going to lie, Melissa kind of came out of left-field this year. Hell, I actually didn’t recognize her because of how butch they ended up making her in Bridesmaids, which is funny because she’s abso-fucking-lutely adorable in real life. There’s just something about the giant eyes and the super wide grin that reminds me of a Disney character.
