Melissa McCarthy opens up about why she loves roles where confidence is a 'cover'

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If you see Melissa McCarthy on screen, then you better be prepared to laugh.

Throughout the years, she's portrayed hilarious characters like Megan in "Bridesmaids," Susan Cooper in "Spy" and Tammy in "Tammy."

Though she’s known for providing a little bit of comedic relief, McCarthy has also played dramatic roles, like Lee Israel in “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” which earned her a nod at the 2019 Oscars for best performance by an actress in a leading role.

When asked what it was like for her to be in the same category as “serious actors,” she said, “It’s always a little strange.”

“I started in standup, and then did all dramatic work, so I really love it. I gravitate towards it. I think the joy of doing both is kind of heaven,” she told TODAY’s Willie Geist on the May 28 episode of Sunday Sitdown.

Now, McCarthy's latest role as Ursula in the live-action remake of "The Little Mermaid" requires her to use a mix of her comedic and dramatic acting skills.

To play the sea witch, McCarthy channeled the legendary drag queen Divine and according to Entertainment Weekly, her own alter drag ego, Miss Y, who she used to dress up as early in her career.

“I am a huge fan of drag, I always have been,” she told Geist. “There’s a bravado to it and a self-deprecation to it.”

She said it also represents something found in all the characters she'll "fall in love with"— a "cover."

"I think (drag) is the perfect mix of having full and utter confidence, and also ... there's some damage there, and it's a cover," she told Geist. "So many people that are, you know, so outspoken, and so kind of quick to maybe play the fool."

When she started performing standup comedy, she herself leaned into a "cover," she told Geist. She was 20 years old and hours into moving to New York City when she got on stage for the first time, wearing a "huge wig," a "silver lamé jacket" and "silver sparkle tights."

"To me it made so much sense, because I was, like, 'I can’t, I can’t be me. I wouldn’t know where to put my hands, I wouldn’t know what to talk about,'" she explained to Geist. "But I loved that you could become this other person, if you’re fully behind this curtain of another person, that suddenly you’re utterly confident."

"I was, like, ‘Oh, I can do that,'" she added.

Similar to her own experience, she loves roles that involves going under that "cover" to understand a character, she said.

“I think in all the characters I kind of fall in love with, that quality of what’s done because of real confidence or what’s done to cover, is exactly the gray area that makes me usually take a part,” she said.

Another trait that unifies McCarthy's extensive body of work — from the comedic to the dramatic – is that they all connect to her "purpose."

"I can’t clean up the water. I can’t come up with fantastic new medicine. I’m not great with science," she said.

"But I’m, like, ‘Maybe the people that do all the really important things, when they come home, I can give them, like, an hour and a half to just forget that all, and maybe laugh, or get lost in some different kind of story,'" she continued. "And I kind of take that as my main purpose.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com