Melissa McCarthy Almost Quit Acting Days Before Landing 'Gilmore Girls'
Text by Billy Ingram
Bridemaids star Melissa McCarthy sat down with Howard Stern in 2014 to explain how she almost quit pursuing acting roles just days before her big break came as a cast member on the long-running drama Gilmore Girls (2000-2007). She had always planned to quitting if she wasn't a working actor by age 30.
"It ran for seven years it was the first time like I could say I'm an actress," she says.
Her cousin Jennie McCarthy was already a star and afforded Melissa the opportunity to work on the crew for her TV and film projects before her big break came. "That was my first job in the business," Melissa says. "I actually learned a lot from that... It was incredibly nice because that's what I wanted, I was like, 'I don't know anything about this. I don't know how any of it works.' I'd only been in theater. And that job literally, every single time I do something today, it's made me better."
As (what some people consider a lowly) production assistant, Melissa found herself multi-tasking each day, she was responsible for, "Everything. You did the garbage, you cleaned up, you did craft service, you'd do every single thing, I dropped the film at night. I was the first one there and the last one to leave and its - like, I wish everybody that went into the business had to do that."
Great advice - if you want to be in motion pictures work on motion pictures.
Movie studio execs are, by and large, dunderheads. OF COURSE they didn't think Bridesmaids would be a hit in 2011. Even director Paul Feig began to doubt whether Bridesmaids would click with theater goers. "Everybody freaked out the week before [the premiere]," Melissa tells Howard. "They're like, 'Numbers are going down, it's not tracking like we thought.' And I kept saying, 'It's going to open great.' I said, 'It's too funny.' And everyone's like, 'We just want you to be very realistic, the numbers are going down.' And I said, 'I'm telling you it's 25 [million] at least, it could be up to 30.' They're like, 'Well, we know what we're talking about and that's not going to happen.'"
Bridesmaids earned $24.6 million on opening weekend, topping out at $289,632,02 domestically with an additional almost $100 million in DVD sales.
Listen to this clip where Howard Stern proves once again what an unparalleled interviewer he is - because he knows the business so well.
Gilmore Girls: Set in a storybook Connecticut town populated by an eclectic mix of dreamers, artists and everyday folk, this multigenerational drama about family and friendship centers around Lorelai Gilmore and her daughter, Rory.
