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"\n\n Thievery takes a multitude of forms in Hollywood. It happens in the Excel spreadsheets wielded by studio accountants, in the tired plots of a thousand mediocre screenplays, and, rarely and thrillingly, in movies in which unheralded actors have lucked into the roles of their lives. This spring, in a career-making performance, TV veteran Melissa McCarthy (\"Gilmore Girls,\" \"Mike Molly\") stole Bridesmaids as Megan, a self-made woman of great machismo, voracious sexual appetites, mysterious financial resources, and a truly atrocious wardrobe. To discover how the role came together, we spoke with McCarthy, Bridesmaids director Paul Feig, and her castmates\u2014many of whom first met a decade ago doing improv with L.A.'s renowned Groundlings troupe.\n\n\u00B7\u00B7\u00B7\n\n Melissa McCarthy, \"Megan\":  I read the script and had such a weird, fast reaction to Megan. I knew exactly what I wanted her to look like, to sound like, and I got an intense feeling of \"I like her so much! This will never work out!\" For the audition, I wore no makeup and a bad pant. Once I look like the character, it really locks me in, even if people sometimes say, \"We need you not to be repulsive.\"\n\n Paul Feig, director:  We would always do an improv section during the auditions, and quickly we realized, \"Holy shit, this woman is on fire.\" The mistake a lot of people make in casting is they get so tied to the words and the character they wrote that they don't see when somebody is better than what they have on the page. Melissa came in with this character that was just a force of nature. At first I was ike, \"Is she playing it as a lesbian?\" Then it got into all this weird sex stuff.\n\n Melissa McCarthy: I love those no-bullshit women with close-cropped hair that you'll see together and think, \"Is that her partner?\" Then they talk about their husbands and six kids. I just love anybody who's that comfortable in her own skin. But the whole ride home from the audition, I was thinking, \"I got too weird. Should I turn the car around and do that cheesy actor thing of 'I can do it better! Give me another shot!' \"\n\n Rose Byrne, \"Helen\":  Melissa said she wanted Megan to look like Guy Fieri from the Food Network.\n\n Melissa McCarthy: Ben [Falcone, McCarthy's husband, who plays Air Marshal Jon] and I are obsessed with \"Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.\" I wanted to wear a short white spiky wig, and they were like, \"You can't actually be Guy Fieri.\" I kept wanting to wear crazy white Oakleys on the back of my head, like he does, but somehow they never got in.\n\n Kristen Wiig, \"Annie\" and co-writer:  Her wardrobe in this movie was its own character: \"If I have these horrible culottes on and this golf shirt, maybe I should have long fingernails and pearls....\"\n\n Maya Rudolph, \"Lillian\":  I believe she wore SAS comfort sandals. For, like, elderly people. But she said they were incredibly comfortable.\n\n Paul Feig:  Melissa has the ability to take something that's weird or challenging and personalize it and make it real. During the Brazilian-restaurant scene, Helen's talking about this big house she has and that people can stay with her if they want. Melissa goes on this whole run of how she needs to do that because there's a squirrel infestation at her house, and a squirrel had burrowed into her vagina and was living in her vagina. I could never get it into the movie, but it made me laugh so hard.\n\n Rose Byrne: Melissa is nothing at all like Megan. That's not hiring someone to do what they do; that's a real performance. Melissa's beautiful and feminine, but Megan's tone\u2014it's almost like she's a coach. There's no doubt in her voice. For me a lot of the comedy comes from the tension between the wildness of her ideas and the way she would say them with such authority and confidence and speed.\n\n Kristen Wiig: The lines were coming to her so quickly. I don't even think she really thought about \"How is this sounding? What do I look like?\" She just became Megan.\n\n Paul Feig:  In the bridal-salon scene, she hefts the couch: \"Oh, that's nice.\" I remember just telling her to jump over it. She got stuck, but she just committed to the scene. [laughs] The scene [in which Megan, stricken with diarrhea, screams,] \"Look away!\" [from atop the bathroom sink] was in the script, but there was this whole thing she improvised where she's suddenly screaming at the dress-shop owner, \"Give me your fucking jacket!\" She wanted to wipe her ass with the woman's jacket.\n\n Ben Falcone, \"Air Marshal Jon\":  Melissa will do anything to get a laugh. It's pathological. Once [with the Groundlings] she had a sketch where this guy spurns her, and she gets so mad that she tries to pop these balloons she's brought him. She couldn't get one to pop, but she wasn't going to lose. She finally head-butts the freaking thing, and it pops, and she smashes her face into the stage and breaks her nose. To this day she's like, \"Well, the audience liked it.\"\n\n Annie Mumolo, co-writer:  The airplane sequence wasn't in the original script. There was a Vegas sequence that was in there for four years, and we literally tossed it in a period of hours. [Producer] Judd [Apatow] was just like, \"We can't do Vegas; it's in every movie right now.\" As writers, you want to pee yourself. Judd suggested they don't get to Vegas because something happens on the plane, and the airplane sequence was born.\n\n Ben Falcone: From the skeleton of the script, the plane ride became wildly improvised. Melissa's talking about putting a Nano up my butt, or up her butt\u2014the Nano was going up someone's butt. I ruined millions of takes by laughing. In the scene outside the bathroom, she had to say, \"Let's go to the restroom\u2014and not rest,\" and after that she was free to improv. She had such good ones that I ruined. Like she said, \"Do you like this leg? I got another one just like it. I can put them both over my head and comb my goddamn hair.\"\n\n Maya Rudolph: Honestly, I've always felt that Melissa is hands down one of the most incredible performers I've ever worked with. I've heard people over the years say, \"I really like her on 'Gilmore Girls.' \" In the back of my mind, I was always saying, \"Just you wait.\" When we were making Bridesmaids, I secretly delighted in knowing that vintage McCarthy was about to be unleashed upon the world, and I was excited to tell the world, \"Hold on to your ass.\"\n\n Paul Feig:  Let any debate about \"women aren't funny\" be put to rest. I would do anything with her, and she's got such range that she kind of can do anything. The worst thing you could do, if you had a Melissa McCarthy in your employ, would be, \"Can you just stick to the script?\" But that happens a lot. Why the fuck would you ever do that?"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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