-Melissa, it's always great to see you.
You look fantastic. -What a delight.
-Welcome back to the show. -Look at us.
-Look at us now. -Face-to-face, guys.
-Face-to-face.
-Your husband was here last night.
-He was. -Ben Falcone. Very funny.
-I've met him. -Very funny human being.
Did you -- Did you guys meet at The Groundlings in L.A.,
which is -- -We did.
-You did. -We met at The Groundlings.
I insulted his hometown. -Is that right?
-And then we went around a certain -- not insulted.
But I was like -- I went to school in Carbondale, Illinois.
No one has heard of that.
And then it got around to him.
He's like, "Cool. I'm from Carbondale, so thanks."
-Oh, really? Wow.
It's an improv -- improvisation school --
-School. And then you get into a company.
And then you wear lots of wigs,
and it's a lot of very funny people.
-Oh, so many -- -I learned to write there.
I learned to really perform there, so I love it.
-I was taught there, as well. -Yeah.
-And I love The Groundlings. If you're out in L.A.,
and if you're into comedy, go -- go to The Groundlings and --
-Treat. -And go to the -- oh, my gosh.
I remember just -- Really, I remembered
a lot of just bombing. A lot of --
I would do characters that got no laughs at all.
-And those are the ones you remember.
I mean, 'cause it's like, the good ones, you're like,
"Hey, great!"
But the ones that, when you're like, "Oof"...
[ Laughter ]
They -- like, when a collective group is like,
"We don't like her"... [ Laughter ]
...that, like -- that has a memory --
that, like, sticks with you. -It does.
Forever, and you -- and you talk about it
after the show with all your castmates.
-But we still talk about it. Ben and I had a legendary bomb.
And the second -- like, you're about to come out on stage.
One second before the lights came up,
I looked at him, and I went, "Oh, my God!
There's nothing funny!
There's nothing funny in the sketch."
-Yeah. -Lights come on,
and we have to go out, and it's like,
we're in matching outfits... [ Laughter ]
We had, like, short silly hair and, like, matching white jeans
and, like, red sweaters, and that's where it ends.
'Cause there's no real story. -That was the whole sketch?
-We're doing glamour shots. So it's just us like...
[ Laughter ]
And people actively were like, "Oh, God. These two."
So it just kept getting worse and worse.
We had -- there was no story.
So if they hated us at 5 seconds,
by 30 seconds of doing the same thing,
they were like -- it was just steaming.
And we were sitting up on like black boxes like this,
and I just flipped back. I flipped over.
-Fell.
-No, I wanted to get out of there.
[ Laughter ] I'm not kidding.
-You flipped over the box? -I flipped over.
I just did a back somersault. And I landed --
And, like, this signal in the theater was,
if the director did this, you had the black --
the lighting booth would black it out.
And so, I just put only my hand above the box,
and I just kept going like this. [ Laughter ]
Meanwhile, I left Ben sitting there.
Ben's still sitting there now like, "What the hell is...?"
-And you're going -- and it's just a hand?
-Just my hand. And, finally, I come out.
When I look up, and the two guys in the lighting booth
are just laughing and pointing at us.
And they're like, "No, no."
So, I had to climb back up on the box.
And I'm like, "Sorry about that. I fell."
[ Laughter ]
And then, they made the scene longer.
It did not get funnier.
And we just finally, it -- the lights did go out.
And it was just silent. -Mm.
-Not even like a... [ Slow claps ]
Nothing. They were just like...
-People were like -- -..."You can go," yeah.
-People moving in their -- yeah. -[ Grumbling ]
-Ben mentioned something to me last night
that I want to ask you about -- a thing called hard dancing.
And you can thank him later. -He's wonderful.
-Yeah, he's a wonderful hu-- [ Laughter ]
He said that you do a thing called hard dancing
and to ask you, what is -- what is hard dancing?
-It's -- Well, it's just a horror --
it's really to terrorize our kids.
-Yeah. That's what parents are supposed to do.
-This is the message I've got. When we're actually
doing something that we think is kind of funny,
and then the girls are just like...
[ Laughter ]
And I'm like, "You know -- it could be worse."
And they're like, "I don't know. I don't know how."
So then, we just -- some kind of music will come on,
and I'll be like...
♪♪
[ Laughter ]
♪♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
And it goes on a long... -Hard dancing.
It's what I'm talking about. I love hard dancing.
[ Cheers and applause ] -And it goes on --
it goes on a long time. And it goes way --
when it's like, "Okay, it's so weird, it's almost funny.
Four minutes past that is -- My sweet spot.
-The sweet spot. Yeah.
I follow you on all the socials. You're very, very funny.
You did a thing a couple years ago --
I want to say it was during COVID --
where you were kind of talking to the creators of "Thor."
They were doing the new, the next "Thor" movie.
-Sure. -And you were like, "Hi."
You and Ben, your husband, are like, "Hey, we would love
to be in the new 'Thor.'
We could do a monologue, prepare something for you.
We'd love to be in it. Taika or Chris,
if you're watching this, we can do, you know,
monologues in character." It was -- It was funny.
You were calling Marvel "mar-vel," by the way.
And it was making me laugh. And then, there's a photo
that went around on the Internet just recently.
And I don't want to say anything --
-What was it? -Well, I'll tell you
what it was. It was this.
It looks like you on the set of "Thor: Love and Thunder."
And my question is, is that you? Is this photo real?
-I don't know any -- You know what that was?
That was me going to my cousin Dawn's bridal book party.
[ Laughter ]
-Dawn is her name? -Yes, Dawn.
-Yeah, and it was her bridal book party.
That's what you dress like? -Yeah.
-That's what you dress like -- -Well that's what you dress
to go to a bridal book party. -Yeah.
And which started first? The bridal shower or the book --
-Bridal, book, or book and bridal.
-Yeah. Book and bridal?
It was a horse thing. Like a bridle?
Like a horse? -Then we do it on horses.
-Oh, my gosh. Fantastic.
So you cannot confirm nor deny this is --
-If that is even me.
And if it is, that was at Dawn's house.
-If it was, that was at Dawn's house.
-She had a girl! -Okay.
[ Laughter ]
That, like, makes it more believable.
I want to talk about --
the week of June 13th, you have a very busy week.
-Yeah. -You have an HGTV show.
This is called "The Great Giveback."
-"The Great Giveback." -You and your --
-It's myself and my wonderful cousin, Jenna Perusich.
And we are obsessed with all things house.
We are -- It's troubling for Ben,
because if I -- he's like,
"I come in, and I see you looking at a wall.
But what I know is you're looking at,
'What would it look like without that wall?'"
[ Laughter ]
-Can we -- can we knock down the wall and build something?
You're like a home improver. -We're always --
I'm doing my house. I do other people's houses.
We do friends. We do family.
And then, kind of after the last three years,
we thought so much noise goes into negativity
and all this just hate and fighting.
And we know that there's more good than bad.
So, I'm like, "I want to do something
that gives the microphone a chance to land
on all the goodness." -Yeah.
-So we found all these amazing, amazing people
that just give and give and give,
and we give back to them. And we, like,
do something in their house that would really
kind of improve their world. -That is so cool and so fun.
I mean, do they freak out when they see it's you
coming to their house and like --
-I think sometimes they're pretty confused.
They don't know it's us. -Yeah.
-And they don't even know they've been chosen.
So they think they're just doing kind of like a --
a little, like -- behind the scenes, like,
maybe for an audition.
And then we just strangely storm up and then scare them.
-Yep. -And then, every time,
it's like, within in hour, I'm like,
"Can I have your keys?" [ Laughter ]
And every time they give it to me,
I'm always like, "This is terrible.
You shouldn't do this." -Yeah.
-But it's just been -- there's been tears and lots of laughter.
-I was gonna say, I love those shows.
I lose it. I get emotional.
Because I go, "That is exactly --
That's what everyone should be doing,
just helping each other and giving back."
-It has been lovely to have such great reminders
that there is more good. It's just not as loud.
So we're trying to get it out there.
-I love that. -Spread it around.
-Good for you. [ Cheers and applause ]
Speaking of more joy and more good, this thing is funny.
There's a new Netflix series called "God's Favorite Idiot."
This is June 15th.
-This is what -- this is what is going on in Ben's head.
-Yeah. -And I'll leave it at that.
-Yeah, but this is -- he told me he had this idea
like 20 years ago.
-Yeah, he wrote a book called "God's Favorite Idiot" at 24.
Like, when I first met him, he's like,
"You want to read my book?"
Which I -- I didn't know he literally meant that.
I was like, "Sure." [ Laughter ]
-"Whatever you mean, yeah." -And then he handed me a book.
I was like, "Oh, okay" -"Oh, you really want me
to read your book. Wow." -And, you know, it was weird
and funny but really sweet.
And then he just put it away.
Like, put it in a drawer and then did nothing with it.
And about three years ago, I always loved the concept of it,
so we started talking about it,
and it kind of morphed into what this lovely show is.
-Yeah, and it's basically, if God, the chosen one,
God finds him on Earth, is like, "Yeah, you're the one --"
-Picks a very understated, kind of average,
very sweet guy to kind of be the one to get the word out
and try to kind of -- try to save the world.
And then it's all the kind of logistical things
of, like, "Who's gonna believe you?
How do you mention it? What's your platform?"
Like, all the things that, like, what would you really do?
If your neighbor Paul was like, "By the way...
God's chosen me to save the world,"
you'd be like, "Okay, Paul."
-"Okay, Paul, let's talk tomorrow.
Let's talk tomorrow." -"All right, Clark."
You know, so -- but it's so weird.
It's this group of, like, just comedy assassins.
And there's horses, there's angels and demons
and I.T. workers. -There's LARP'ing, by the way.
-There's LARP'ing, yeah. -I saw you -- this is --
-[ Laughs ]
-This was live-action role-playing.
[ Laughter ]
Which is very -- it's its own world, by the way.
-This is -- it really is. This -- Ben kept saying,
"I love you every day, but today, I love you more."
'Cause he was super into D&D. And so, like this whole thing --
And I kept saying, "If I could tell my 10-year-old self
that, like, "This -- You're being professional.
This is what you'll do for a job."
I would've been like, "What?" -"What?! No way."
-"I get to put, like, beer caps on my chest plate?
Okay." [ Laughter ]
Like, it was so fun. And we got into this whole
LARP'ing world and learned so much about it.
And it's -- it's just been a blast.
-The show's fun. I want to show everyone a clip.
Here's Melissa McCarthy in "God's Favorite Idiot."
Take a look at this.
-I saw something crazy last night.
And I do want it to just be completely open and honest.
I just want to preface the whole thing by saying,
yes, did I cocaine twice last week,
but I did zero cocaine preceding the event
that I'm about to describe. -Jesus.
-I also accidentally roofied myself last night, too.
But I don't know if that's really relevant.
-How do you accidentally roofie yourself?
-It's a lot easier than you think.
I was at a restaurant, minding my own business,
I'm sitting at the bar, I'm scrolling my live panda feed
from China that I love, and I see this guy.
He's looking at me. And I'm like,
"He likes what he sees." So, I go in my pocket,
pull out a mint. Pop the mint.
It's not a mint. It's a beta blocker.
So, I wash that down with four to six tequilas,
and then I try to order some food to kind of right the ship.
This restaurant does not serve food.
-Were you at a bar? -I was at a bar.
-Yeah. "That's where I was."
Melissa McCarthy, everybody!
"God's Favorite Idiot" is on Netflix June 15th.