Jennifer Coolidge helped Melissa McCarthy land her first film role
With a little help from Coolidge, McCarthy landed a small role in Doug Liman’s Go (1999)
Aux News Jennifer Coolidge
During a Q&A following the finale of Hulu miniseries Nine Perfect Strangers, Melissa McCarthy opened up about how Jennifer Coolidge helped her land her first film role in 1999. The legendary character actor and scene stealer vouched for McCarthy during the casting process for Doug Liman’s cult classic Go—even though, as McCarthy recalled, they never interacted during their time with the LA-based improv comedy troupe The Groundlings.
“I didn’t know her. I was just a student and she was a company member at the Groundlings,” McCarthy recounts. “And she contacted a casting director—I didn’t know she knew I was alive—and said, ‘I think you should see this girl.’ And [casting director] Joseph Middleton, he’s like, ‘She doesn’t do that ever.’”
We love to see women supporting women. Coolidge herself only had a few smaller television and film roles under her belt. After she was rejected by SNL in 1995, she went on to have roles in A Night At The Roxbury and of course American Pie. Following her small role in Go, McCarthy went on to snag roles in films such as the star-studded Drowning Mona, Disney’s The Kid, and Charlie’s Angels.
“I went in, and I got Go, which was my first movie. And then I got an agent, and I was able to join SAG, and it’s all… before you ask Jennifer, she goes, ‘I didn’t do anything,’” McCarthy adds with her best Coolidge impression. “But she did. She went out of her way and just was really kind to me.”
Dang Coolidge, that’s pretty cool.
McCarthy’s break out role was Sookie St. James in Gilmore Girls, which she played starting in 2000 until the show’s end in 2007. Throughout the 2010s the Academy Award nominee became one of the most prominent comedy actors, starring in features such as Bridesmaids, Identity Thief, Tammy, The Boss, Spy, and the women-led reboot of Ghostbusters (2016). In recent years, McCarthy’s flexed her drama acting muscles in The Kitchen, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, and most recently the grief-centric The Starling.
8 Comments
She’s so very, very good in her one scene in Go. For anyone who hasn’t seen it, the setup: the men are a couple, who’ve discovered they were both cheating on each other with the same guy:
Wow I can really see the roots of her current style/acting in that scene!
Holy shit, nice catch.
Did someone say Go!?2 Mustard Plug songs in one week may be a bit much but I’ll risk it!
Recently I had seen some of her small roles on The Jenny McCarthy Show, circa 1997. I did not realize they were cousins, mostly because my brain looked past the last names as I just associate Jenny McCarthy with 25 years of garbage. Anyway, it’s not one of those, “You can see the talent even now!!” because she barely had anything to do, but she does have a very natural presence even at the time, and it’s fun to see her in a bit with Will Forte as I don’t really know if they have ever worked together since. (there was one sketch which had the two of them, plus George Kennedy, and about 9 other people, it’s just such generations of Hollywood/comedy/what have you together was was very surreal)
> I did not realize they were cousinsTIL
I think the first time I saw her in anything was Curb Your Enthusiasm, the Surrogate episode. She was a toy store employee
Weird! I bet having her cousin noted anti-vaxxer Jenny McCarthy already have an established entertainment career helped too!