Melissa McCarthy

Melissa McCarthy (born August 26, 1970, Plainfield, Illinois, U.S.) is an American actress known for roles that highlight her gift for physical comedy and raunchy one-liners.

Early life and career

McCarthy was brought up on an Illinois farm. After she graduated from high school, she began performing as a stand-up comic in New York City at such notable clubs as Stand Up New York and the Improv. She honed her acting skills at the Actors Studio and appeared in a number of stage productions before moving in the late 1990s to Los Angeles, where she performed (1997–2010) with the Groundlings improv troupe.

Roles on Gilmore Girls, Mike & Molly, and other television series

McCarthy had bit parts in films and on television before securing her breakout role as Sookie St. James on TV’s Gilmore Girls (2000–07). She was cast in supporting roles in a succession of TV series, including Samantha Who? (2007–09), Rita Rocks (2009), and Private Practice (2010), before landing a starring role opposite Billy Gardell in Mike & Molly (2010–16), which followed humorous moments in the lives of a man and a woman who meet at a Chicago Overeaters Anonymous group and eventually marry. The show, which was coproduced by Chuck Lorre, became a hit with critics and viewers. McCarthy was nominated for numerous Emmy Awards, and she won in 2011.

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Bridesmaids and other early films

With the success of Mike & Molly, McCarthy received more film offers, and in 2012 she earned an Academy Award nomination for her supporting role in the raunchy comedy Bridesmaids (2011). Although her size made her an unconventional leading lady by Hollywood standards, McCarthy was soon starring in films that proved her box-office appeal. In 2013 she was cast as an obnoxious scam artist in Identity Thief, and later that year she starred opposite Sandra Bullock in the buddy comedy The Heat, playing a foul-mouthed Boston cop. McCarthy’s credits from 2014 include the dramedy St. Vincent (2014), which was noted for her sensitive portrayal of a divorcée trying to manage child care for her prepubescent son, and the road-trip comedy Tammy. The latter was written by McCarthy and her husband, Ben Falcone, who also directed; the couple collaborated on numerous films. She then starred as a mousy CIA agent who becomes a superspy and saves the world in Spy (2015).

Roles from the late 2010s

In the late 2010s McCarthy was cast in The Boss (2016) portraying an unscrupulous businesswoman attempting to counteract the stigma of having been convicted of insider trading. Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016), a remake of the 1984 classic comedy about hunting spirits and other supernatural creatures, featured McCarthy alongside Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones. Before the film was even released in theaters, its casting of the titular team of wisecracking enforcers as women received searing backlash online. One particularly vocal segment of the original film’s fan base led a coordinated effort to harass the movie’s stars and creators and to boycott the film.

In 2017 McCarthy impersonated Sean Spicer, then White House press secretary for Pres. Donald Trump, in a series of skits on Saturday Night Live, including an episode in which she was the host. For that appearance, McCarthy received an Emmy Award as best guest actress in a comedy series. Her movie roles from 2018 include a recently divorced mother who returns to college to finish her degree in Life of the Party and a detective investigating the murder of puppets in the screwball comedy The Happytime Murders. McCarthy also garnered critical acclaim—and her second Oscar nomination—for her sympathetic portrayal of disgraced celebrity biographer Lee Israel in Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018). In The Kitchen (2019) McCarthy joined an all-star female cast playing a trio of mob wives who take over their husbands’ work in 1970s New York City.

Credits from the 2020s

McCarthy’s film credits from 2020s include Superintelligence (2020), in which she was cast as a woman who must convince an artificial intelligence not to end humanity; the action-comedy Thunder Force, which centers on two friends who become superheroes and battle genetic mutants; and The Starling, a drama about a woman grieving the death of an infant. In 2021 she also appeared in the miniseries Nine Perfect Strangers, which was based on a novel by Liane Moriarty; McCarthy played an unhappy author who seeks the help of a mysterious guru (Nicole Kidman) at a wellness retreat. In 2022 she starred with Falcone in the TV series God’s Favorite Idiot. The following year McCarthy won raves for her performance as the evil Ursula opposite Halle Bailey’s Ariel in a live-action version of The Little Mermaid. In 2024 she starred alongside Jerry Seinfeld in his directorial debut, Unfrosted, which tells the satirical history of the Pop-Tart, America’s beloved breakfast pastry. McCarthy also had a guest role on the hit Hulu series Only Murders in the Building.

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Fashion line

In addition to her acting, McCarthy founded a fashion line, Seven7, which debuted in 2015. Though the collection was referred to as “plus size,” she took issue with that designation and with the fashion industry’s dictate that sizes 14 and above (a category that encompassed about 70 percent of American women) required special designation. Her line included sizes 4–28. Seven7 closed after several years of production.