For more than 25 years, Melissa McCarthy has steadily made a name for herself worldwide as a trustworthy source of comedic relief, but in Disney‘s live-action The Little Mermaid reboot, she’s undoubtedly The Villain.
While the Gilmore Girls star did dabble in the sinister by playing a caricature of Cate Blanchett‘s Hela, the Asgardian Goddess of Death, in Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), McCarthy’s turn as Ursula – growls, cackles and all – envelopes fans in a tsunami of shock.
That’s largely helped – aside from her terrifying rendition of Poor Unfortunate Souls and acting chops in general – by her claw-like nails and extreme smokey eye. And, of course, Ursula’s glowing tentacles.
Watch the video above.
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“I may or may not have tentacles, and I’m not going to verify that,” McCarthy, 52, tells 9Honey Celebrity in Sydney with a sly grin when asked if she successfully stole something from a set full of coveted ‘thingamabobs’.
“But Colleen Atwood [The Little Mermaid‘s Oscar-winning costume designer] made me a little something because I was like, ‘Oh, if I need it at some point…’, and then something magical just showed up!”
“Or it didn’t! Or it didn’t, and I’m not legally bound to anything,” she quickly disclaims with a laugh.
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McCarthy may be a seasoned Hollywood star, but even the shiniest of jewels can be re-forged – and Ursula presented McCarthy with new challenges she had to face beyond a dramatic change of archetype.
As The Heat actress, co-star Halle Bailey and director Rob Marshall have been travelling across the seven seas – from Los Angeles to London to Sydney and beyond – in preparation for The Little Mermaid‘s release, McCarthy has been open about just how much she wanted the role, and how nervous she was to seriously sing on-camera for the first time.
But after months of painstaking research – she drew inspiration from American drag queen Divine, whom the original Ursula was based off – and vocal training, McCarthy proved on-set she was more than up for the challenge.
And as The Little Mermaid hits cinemas in Australia today, audiences will see for themselves how her dedication paid off.
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But when McCarthy’s two daughters saw their mum’s foray into wickedness for the first time, it hardly fazed them.
“They weren’t scared,” McCarthy, who shares 16-year-old Vivian and 13-year-old Georgette with actor Ben Falcone, 49, says of their reaction.
In fact, they were more preoccupied with the fate of Ursula’s beloved henchmen, Flotsam and Jetsam.
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“‘Do you think I did OK?'” McCarthy recalls asking them. “And then their main concern was like, ‘Oh, the eels.’ They were like, ‘Oh, your eels.’ and I’m like, ‘What about me?'”
“They were like, ‘Oh, I know, I know, I know, but the eels, we were really upset that the eels get hurt’,” she laughs.
McCarthy says, as far as reviews from her children go, she thinks she did “OK”.
But her performance, in their eyes, was overwhelmingly overshadowed by the fact that the protagonist to their mother’s antagonist was played by none other that Halle Bailey.
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“It was really funny, they were really interested… they just really wanted to meet Halle,” McCarthy says with a smile and a look of admiration directed towards Bailey, who giggles, that shows it’s a fact she’s happy about.
“And they never ask for that, they wanted to go to the premiere, they wanted to meet Halle, and usually they’re like, ‘That’s OK, we don’t have to’, but this time they were like, ‘We want to meet her’, and I’m like ‘OK!’
“So I think I got a little chip of cool just by association.”
It seems the A-lister is, although a newly-minted Disney Villain, just like any other parent at the end of the day.
The Little Mermaid is in cinemas in Australia from May 25.