Melissa McCarthys mom used to feed stray and rescue cats, once pet a skunk
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Melissa McCarthy is always a good interview. I enjoy her so much. She was on Ellen this week, where she talked about working on the Little Mermaid live action movie. That’s coming out sometime next year and Melissa will be Ursula! They’re in rehearsals right now and she called it a “fever dream” and “so fun” to work on. She’s also promoting the show Little Big Shots, which comes back on NBC on March 1st. Melissa is the host and it’s a kids’ variety show. It’s hard to know which stories of Melissa’s to excerpt because she told so many good ones! The best were about her ten year-old daughter, Georgette, who loves watching Melissa do stunts and wanted a stunt person experience for her birthday. Melissa also had her parents with her in the audience and talked about how her mom used to feed all the neighborhood’s stray cats.
On what she got her daughter for her tenth birthday
I got her a stunt harness, which is what we wear for a fight scene [or] explosion in a movie… that’s all she really wanted. We’re going to a parkour gym for her birthday party. I’m having riggers come. She’s on set all the time with me and wants to do stunts and flip around. We’re going to have guys, safely and lovingly, jerk her up to the ceiling. She’s like ‘I’ve got three jobs. Now I’m a chiropractor, an actor and a stuntwoman.’ [She also plays violin.]
On her mom feeding cats when Melissa was a child
I remember it getting up to 33, 34 cats [in the barn]. My mom would go on the back porch and call ‘here ki-ki-ki-kitty.’ My mom always took a really long time to pet them and give them names. She did that one night and [realized she had been petting a skunk].
[From The Ellen Show via YouTube]
The way they presented this story was that people would drop rescue cats off at their house, but there’s also the fact that all the stray cats in the area probably gathered there too. That can’t be avoided. My friend has a guy at her apartment complex who feeds cats. On one hand it’s very kind of him to do that but on the other it’s annoying to the neighbors. There are always so many cats hanging around and they’re more the feral type rather than pets. I’m sorry for sounding judgy about stray cats!
As for her daughter wanting the stunt experience, that sounds like such a cool birthday party! I love that Melissa encourages her interests like that.
Here’s the interview. At the beginning Melissa tells the story of Ellen making Melissa fake like she fainted at her dry cleaners for laughs. I feel like Ellen goes too far with these stunts. Melissa kept getting mistaken for Amy Schumer, which she appreciated.
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