CINEMA: Being Jenny McCarthy

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FRESH AIR: Melissa McCarthy is not interested in playing pleasant characters — flawless women with perfect clothes and relationships. “Who wants to watch that?” she asks. “There’s nothing to sink your teeth into. … The people I love and like are filled with quirks and eccentricities. … We’re a bundle of all these different weirdnesses.” Instead, McCarthy became known for her comic roles in movies like Bridesmaids and The Heat — and for her impersonation of President Trump’s first press secretary, Sean Spicer, on SNL. More recently, McCarthy’s taken a turn into drama, playing the misanthropic writer and literary forger Lee Israel in the new film, Can You Ever Forgive Me? Israel, who died in 2014, was famously caustic — and complex. McCarthy embraces the opportunity to bring these characters to life on screen — as an actor, writer and producer: “I don’t think a day goes by where I don’t realize how lucky I am,” she says — taking on the challenge of portraying these “three-dimensional, flawed … really real women.” MORE