McCarthy schooled in ‘Life of the Party’
Actress plays a dumped homemaker who decides to re-enroll in college
Melissa McCarthy may be the Life of the Party in theaters this weekend, but at home, she’s a contending master baker. ❚ On a recent Saturday morning, the actress is three hours into baking 11-year-old Vivian’s three-tiered birthday cake, requested to be “carrot cake on the bottom,” followed by layers of strawberry cake and Funfetti.
Outrageous cakes have become a new tradition in the McCarthy/Falcone home. Daughters Vivian and Georgette, 8, “make it more and more elaborate each year. Last year (Vivian) said, ‘I want a three-dimensional shark jumping out of the ocean. And the beach,’ ” McCarthy laughs. (Yes, this household is obsessed with The Great British Baking Show.)
In Life of the Party (in theaters Friday), directed by husband Ben Falcone, McCarthy’s focus is more academic. The actress plays Deanna, a homemaker unceremoniously dumped by her cheating husband on drop-off day of their daughter’s senior year of college. Picking herself off the floor, Deanna decides to enroll at the university to finish the archaeology degree she left behind at 21.
“I actually really do want to go back to school someday,” says McCarthy, 47, who moved to New York in her early 20s to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology.
But “on the second night in New York I did stand-up, and I called my parents and said, ‘ I’m not going back to school, and I’m going to do the rock-solid business of stand-up comedy.’ ”
What would she study now? McCarthy, who established her own fashion line, Melissa McCarthy Seven7, in 2015 (to be relaunched soon), says she “would want to take a bunch of math classes. I always enjoyed math, but I never got to see how far I could go.”
McCarthy is serious about the num- bers. Years before Time’s Up started demanding equal pay for women in Hollywood, the actress was setting her own standards for parity.
“I’ve never acted any differently. I’ve always been aware of ‘Well, what’s everyone getting?’ If we’re all getting 75 cents to do the same work, great! I’ll take the 75 cents. If someone’s getting $900 … I haven’t changed. Maybe that’s why it took me so long to start working,” she laughs. Regardless of the gender dynamics, “I just always thought, ‘Well, is it fair?’ ”
Part of that strategy is knowing when to call the whole thing off. “I think the biggest negotiating tool is to be like, ‘OK, well, I think I’m ready to walk away, no hard feelings,’ ” she says.
It’s working: McCarthy’s schedule is rollicking. In a week, she’ll start filming the Mob drama The Kitchen with Elisabeth Moss and Tiffany Haddish, and in
2018 alone she’s releasing two more films: the graphic puppet comedy The Happytime Murders (out Aug. 17) and the awards-friendly biopic Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Oct. 19), in which she plays author-turned-forger Lee Israel.
McCarthy has been putting ballsy, imperfect women onscreen with deliberation since she took off in 2011’s Bridesmaids, from 2014’s Tammy to
2016’s The Boss. “What I loved about ( Life of the Party) was being able to show a mom-and-daughter relationship where they weren’t at each other’s throats,” she says. “You just don’t see that that much.”
But right now, in her kitchen, the party is Mary Berry-themed. “It’s, like, a 35-pound cake at this point,” she jokes, heading back to her homemade marshmallow fondant. “I’m going to try to cut out jubilant clouds and a sun on top of it.”