For once, Melissa McCarthy isn’t joking. A moment ago the two-time Oscar nominee was her usual buoyant, effervescent self, but recent attempts by right-wing politicians to ban drag shows across the USA are no laughing matter. “The attack on drag is absolutely insane,” she says. “People have been doing drag forever. It’s what I do for a living. We all do it. Frankly, every time you put on something to make you seem a little better, a little more handsome, a little more beautiful, then you’re doing your own type of drag.” Her playful smile returns as she pitches her alternative political movement. “My campaign would be: ‘More drag! All drag!’” she laughs. “I’m gonna have that T-shirt made. That’s what the world needs.”

As it turns out, if it wasn’t for drag McCarthy would never have got her start in comedy in the first place. Right now the 52-year-old is at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, where she’s just sparked headlines around the world by unveiling the first clip of herself playing scheming sea witch Ursula in Disney’s live-action remake of The Little Mermaid. But long before she was singing in blockbuster musicals, before collaborating with her husband Ben Falcone on a string of hit comedies like Tammy (2014), The Boss (2016) and Thunder Force (2021), even before she earned her first Oscar nomination with her scene-stealingly outrageous performance in Bridesmaids (2011), McCarthy was a 20 year-old farm girl newly arrived in New York from rural Illinois. Just hours after turning up in the city, a friend suggested she try stand-up. “I’d never even been to a comedy club,” she explains over video call from her Vegas hotel room. “The thought of going up there as myself was paralysing, but I could go up in character.”

So that night, McCarthy created Miss Y. “She was my drag,” she says. “I went up in a huge wig, a silver lamé dress and a tonne of make-up and talked about the trials and tribulations of being the most beautiful woman in New York City.” Those first three minutes on stage sparked a life-long love affair with comedy. “The next day I called my parents and said: ‘I’m not going back to school. I’m gonna do stand-up,’” she remembers. “For some unknown reason, my mom said: ‘Okay, that sounds like a good idea.’ What terrible advice! Thank goodness it worked out.”

Continue reading in Vera, June 2023