I lived on a farm in Illinois, and we didn't have a lot of money. But I lived vicariously through magazines. I was obsessed with Jean Paul Gaultier. I still have the scrapbooks, and I've kept all my designs and sketches.
— Melissa McCarthy
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.
The average size of a woman is 14.
I'm like a three-and-a-half, four-hour-a-night sleeper. It's not enough to function.
Jason Statham is funny, I never knew that.
I think there's so many points of view that you want to make sure your stories are being told from men and women... you get all of the different backgrounds. You don't want every story being told from the same point of view. So just for better storytelling, I'm like, 'Yes, please, bring some more ladies on.'
I was only a bridesmaid for my sister, and it was very calm and small, so I didn't have any tragedy.
We're a weird bunch at 'Mike & Molly.' We go to work, and we're crazy about each other, and we love where we go to work.
Ben and I live like hermits. The night of a concert, we'll be like, 'Do you think we can get tickets?' And everybody is like, 'No, why didn't you do this earlier?'
I have caught my reflection and thought, 'Oof. That girl is struggling. That girl is tired.' I've had mornings where I'm like, 'Oh God, I have weird hair.'
I feel intensely guilty for working... You have to be able to provide for your kids. But I feel like it's a weird modern phenomenon that you always feel guilty for it.
There are a lot of funny women in my life. I never understand those movies where there's eight funny guys and two women who don't have any opinion or humour.
Everybody's a train wreck in their own very special way. But there's something wildly freeing about someone who's unapologetic, who knows they're a wreck and doesn't even try to hide it, just bulldozes through life.
I have an overactive sense of justice. I want women to realize you don't have to work for the company. You can run the company. I want the scope for them to be endless.
I was always Missy, never Melissa. I went to college, and I thought it was so much more interesting to go by a different name, and then it just kind of stuck.
I've been trying to play old-lady parts since I was in my 20s, so I look forward to all of that.
More eccentric characters can push pretty far, but if you stay on the side of reality, it's always funnier.
I loved the playfulness of fashion. I think maybe that's why I became an actress. You put on one outfit and feel one way, and another one will make you feel another way. Clothes are a wonderful tool.
There was a three-year chunk as a teen where I should have been tranquilized and put in a cage.
I'm very boring. But I'm a bit obsessed with women that are so incredibly solid in their shoes that they don't care what other people think of them. I just think there's something so interesting about that kind of confidence.
I'm a huge 'Ghostbusters' fan. I've seen it, like, 10,000 times, so I couldn't be more looking forward to a reboot.
In a lot of comedies, they kind of take all the problems away from the women. They give her great clothes, great hair; she almost always owns an artisanal shop, like a cheese shop in Manhattan.
I would love to be directed by more women.
In terms of the characters I think are really fun to play, a lot of times it's someone in my head saying 'I know that woman.'
When I go shopping, most of the time I'm disappointed.
I love to watch someone who just goes for it and isn't worried about whether it's silly or awkward or unflattering.
We have some of the most rock-solid, lovely friends in the world.
I've watched women being hideously unattractive, personality-wise and physically, all the time. But these women never end up on screen.
I refuse to give energy to the negative. I've got a great fella and two great little girls.
When I was 22, I met with some janky manager, and she told me, 'You're never going to work at this weight.' I think I was a size 6 at the time. There is just this weird thing about how we perceive women in this country. I would love to be a part of breaking that down.
I just figure if it has my name on it, and I want to make people feel good about wearing it, I can't pass it off.
I think the whole reason I act is because it's much more fun to be somebody else. I'm pretty boring.
I laugh my head off every day with my husband and my kids, who are mooning me and singing me songs.
I did not actually run down a deer for 'Tammy,' I promise.
I have experience dressing me as a 6, a 12, and more. And when you go above a size 12, you don't lose your love of fashion.
I love a house project.
I didn't really know how to write jokes, so I just told weird, long stories about being tall and beautiful and wealthy in New York. I'd tell them very seriously, but I kind of looked like a drag queen at the time with big wigs and crazy 12-inch platform heels.
I'm obsessed with 'Call The Midwife.'
If somebody's doing something, and you're laughing, and at the same time you're so embarrassed for them, it's my absolute kind of favorite type of laugh.
Somebody ripped their pants open at my wedding, dipping my mother. My mother is not a lady who throws herself into a dip that often, so I don't think he thought she was really going to do it.
I think everything that any actor does, I would assume, is shaped by how and where they grew up.
Ben and I have absolutely nothing to do with the Hollywood that's all actors and the Sunset Strip. We crave talking to people who do different things and are passionate about it.
I do think comedy needs to be a living thing, but I think without a great script and fully realized characters, you cannot keep it living. Otherwise, it just becomes long and rambling, indulgent. So I think you need both, frankly.
Strangers shouldn't be allowed to take a picture of your child and sell it for profit.
At some point in the past, it was decided that women in comedy are never supposed to be shown in an unflattering light. But in comedy, you need all of your tools to be funny.
The goal was to work enough to pay my bills and stop going through the couch looking for change. Going way beyond that isn't something I really factored in.
People don't stop at a size 12. I feel like there's a big thing missing where you can't dress to your mood above a certain number.
I've grown to love L.A., but it's the most socially awkward place. All these people have come there not to be something but to pretend to be someone trying to be someone.
I don't sleep, but I've got two little kids that don't sleep, either.
When someone really believes in what they're saying, but it's crazy, it's, like, my favorite thing on earth.
