- The only people I ever hear saying,
"That's going to kill."
Are usually people who've never done comedy live.
- Yeah, and they have not felt
the unbelievable sting of a silent audience.
Hi there, I'm Melissa McCarthy.
- Hi, I'm Ben Falcone, director of "Thunder Force,"
and also I'm Melissa's husband.
- And this is The Long Take.
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- I'm gonna kangaroo his ass.
- I don't think that's a good idea.
- I know, it's a great idea.
- Crab, we've got a situation here.
- Handle it, Kenny.
- G'day mate.
- What do you remember about the origins of this film Mooch?
Because I remember the origin quite well,
but I want hear your take on it,
if our memories are the same.
Because we're now getting old ish,
we have chairs that we like,
and we were on our chairs,
and I handed you a scotch.
I basically had the loose version of it,
and I started with Emily and Lydia.
At that point, those characters were named
Octavia and Melissa.
(Melissa laughing)
- Subtle.
- Yeah, because we knew we wanted Octavia
to do it from jump.
And I pitched it to you starting as kids,
and I remember the thing that you liked about it
was the relationships,
and the idea that we could do a really cool superhero movie,
but with a heart.
- Well, I think that's why Octavia
and I both loved doing it,
'cause it's not just a rock 'em sock'em thing.
(people grunting)
There's so much action in it, and the action's amazing,
'cause you know how much I love that.
(glass shattering)
It's also so much about that friendship and it's also...
I mean everybody has that friend.
Everybody has a friend that you've had for a long time.
You've gone up, you've gone down,
but there is still that connection
and you're better off with that person.
- I don't have, uh, an appointment,
but I'm, uh, Lydia Berman.
I'm her best friend.
So...
I mean we're not currently
what I would say best friends or friends,
estranged I think puts a stink on it
that it might not warrant.
- Even if they drive you crazy sometimes,
you're still better off.
That person gives you some kind of balance
and I also just really love that her life's goal,
it wasn't revenge, which I think could have
been really easy to go to.
- It's not fair your parents, got iced by some miscreants
and now we're stuck with you.
- Instead it was to build herself up,
strong enough to fight back and help other people.
- Even if someone is justifiably seeking vengeance,
really then, their motivation is to be a murderer.
And it's hard to make a comedy
with paying reference to murder.
- It hard to root for that.
And it's so funny 'cause, I mean...
Octavia is one of the best actresses on the planet.
That's just a fact, we know this.
And to watch her, how she prepares for something,
how that character suited her,
or maybe she just makes every character suit her,
I thought was so great because it wasn't making someone
a superhero that didn't have to come in
and be all bluster and all this
and her power was her mind and her goodwill.
And that's just a take that I haven't really seen.
- Wow. My heart's really racing.
- Oh boy.
- Now that we're going into a possible...
- [Ben] What is your criteria
for choosing a film or a role?
- I think it's gotta be a great story to tell,
I think it has to be relevant for why we're telling it,
and I have to kind of love the character.
- Now we're officially friends.
- Bet your ass we are.
- I think on the outer shell I'm drawn
to characters that are maybe not typically likable.
And then what I really love is to try
to show the crusty outer shell
versus the soft chewy center.
And I think that's a fun balance when you kind of think,
"I don't know why I like this person but I do."
- You know when people would say,
"Oh, Lee Israel, she's such a villain"
and you were always like,
"I like her."
- She was so good at what she did.
I tend to fall in love
with all my characters for different reasons.
- As do I, I love all your characters.
- Aww.
- You don't say you say,
"1985, the Chicago Bears won the..."
You say,
"1985, the Chicago Bears won the Super Bowl
and created one of the best albums/singles ever,
which was the Super Bowl Shuffle!"
- Carol Burnett was a huge thing in our house.
And it really was big for me.
The one I remember thinking like,
"That's her show, she's generating this."
I love that she absolutely
had no problem being such the butt of the joke.
- [Lydia] Oh boy. That's...
I haven't really driven this one.
- [Emily] How can you have it and not drive it?
- Are they getting in that slowly on purpose?
- [Lydia] Oh boy. That's intimidating.
- I think there's something so magical about that.
It was the same with Gilda Radner and Jane Curtin,
Madeline Kahn, all of those actresses,
I just always thought there's something really amazing
about being like,
"I don't care if I'm the fool."
For a long time it's like women were always supposed
to be perfectly done and they're charming,
and they say the right thing
and blah, blah, blah.
So to watch some of these kind of disruptive women
come in and just be like,
"I'm going to do and say and look
however I feel the character is."
I was like,
"Ooh."
It was like a juicy morsel.
- [Emily] You look good.
- Oh.
- [Ben] What was it like working with Octavia on set
and as an actor?
- Octavia is, as a person, constantly present.
She is so connected to you.
She picks up on every little thing.
Zig that way, she'll go right with you, she'll come back.
It's less about what you're doing
and how much you are kind of there for your acting partner.
And she probably does that perfectly.
And she's such a super preparer.
I mean, she's the first on set.
She's weeks ahead on our lines.
All that work so she can come in
and have it look so effortless.
- This is amazing.
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(people grunting)
- I'm about to get thrown through a wall.
(people grunting)
(glass shattering)
- This was a really different movie for us to do scale wise
and the technical aspect of it.
And was that daunting going into it?
Because all of a sudden we were in a whole new world.
Like, yes we always loved stunts.
These stunts were on steroids for us.
Yes, we've done CGI.
But like, this was all so much bigger.
Like, how did that feel for you going into that?
- I was excited.
I thought that if we prepared enough that,
you know, other people have done it
and our friend, the producer, Rob Cowan did it with Aquaman.
I figured...
You know, and all these other people.
I figured if we had enough help.
I mean, it certainly, it's a large...
The amount of preparation you need is enormous.
So I think the fact that we knew what we didn't know
and we were willing to learn
and continue to be educated as filmmakers.
'Cause if you're not continuing to learn,
you're dying, right?
So I thought it was actually, it was sort of invigorating,
to take the challenge.
Though yes, I was, of course,
because I'm a card carrying coward,
I was nervous about it.
- I think that's so important though.
I don't think most people ever want to just say like,
"Oh there's so many parts of this I don't know,
but I'm going to figure it out."
And then you're willing to go to the people that are...
I mean there's so many specialties and so many technicians
and it's just a separate technology now.
You have to be open and be like,
"I have no idea. How do you make Octavia invisible?"
I really feel like it's also never one department.
It's like, it can't be all stunts.
It can't be all visual effects.
It can't be all special effects.
- Yeah, to me, it was a blast to do.
And to really synchronize the stunt department
with the visual effects department is such an exciting...
And the special effects department.
So you've got real special effects
with real stunts that then morph into a visual effect,
that go back to the stunt.
It just needs a lot of preparation.
And we've learned so much.
- I have to say as an actor, I hope we never be like,
"We don't really need you at all,
we can just do a Digi devil."
Like I'm like,
"I hope not."
But it takes all those departments
that have to absolutely see the same goal, work towards it,
and like, everybody...
It's part of the fun of it.
Like you have to build the same thing
on so many layers to have them be able to stack
on top of each other.
And then you're like,
"Oh, that's it."
But it takes, I mean it takes just so many people
and so many brains to get it there.
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- How would you describe how we work together?
What is our process?
- I think most people know we met at the Groundlings Theatre
and you know, you'd go and write with people,
you'd write at the theater and you'd meet
and have coffee and write.
I don't think either one of us has a very big ego
because if you would say yellow, and I was like,
"Oh, what about blue?"
Then we'd be like,
"Oh, oh, oh! Purple! Purple!"
Like, we could just kind of keep adding layers on to it.
It's never like,
"Well, I want this and you want that
and we'll never meet in the middle."
I think we've always had more middle.
- Do you maybe want to hang out after school?
- Sure.
- What do you like to do?
- Read.
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- Oh! You weren't kidding.
- I also think we're constantly ever-changing.
Like, we work so hard on scripts
and then also throw it all away,
kind of without a second thought.
Does that ever drive you crazy?
- No. Because we always get what we worked
so hard on for months and months and possibly years.
And then finally you're there and you get it.
But you know, we learned that on Tammy, right?
That if you have a really...
If you have a good actor who's prepared
and the camera's in focus
and you're doing the camera the way you want to do it,
and it's lit well,
and then you say it a couple of times
with a couple of different intentions,
you might as well get new things.
- I think we get what we want
and then be like,
"Let's also get this."
(Lydia grunts)
- I hope that's your knee.
(Lydia grunts)
I got pancake in all the wrong places.
- You just don't know what's gonna work
and what's not going to work
until you put it all together, right?
- That's for sure.
We both produce in whatever the full sense of that word is.
Everybody's opinions kind of get put in,
and if you're directing, I can't say like,
"Oh, what if we track this shot around and move with her?"
- I think it still might seem he will like...
Getting into it, maybe somebody throws him the bag.
And he goes for the...
- It always feels fun, like a new fun idea as opposed to,
"Why? Didn't you like what I just did?"
Like, we've never ever done that with each other.
- That probably goes back to being
on stage at Groundlings, right?
And having, you know, we've worked
with Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph and Jordan Black
and Damon Jones and just all these incredible people.
These are the funniest people we know.
All of them at different times had the sketch
that they thought was the one.
And it just sat there on stage, like a dead fish.
And you're like,
"So that means I have to have humility."
Right? Because the only people I ever hear saying like,
"That's going to kill."
Are usually people who've never done comedy live.
- Yeah. And they have not felt the unbelievable sting
of a silent audience.
- We screen our films
and we see how people will actually react to it.
So, we're usually very happy to have
a couple different versions of each comedic beat.
- The Crab. What's his power?
Like, tasting delicious with melted butter?
(both laugh)
- It's just so subjective, your favorite joke in a movie.
And sometimes there's ones where I'm like,
"I love it with my whole heart."
I truly, I think it's the funniest thing in the movie
but nobody in an audience goes for it.
And you can't deny that when no one else seems to like it.
There's always mixed ones, 'cause you tell one joke
to 100 people, 20 don't get it,
20 are offended, 20 missed the point.
You know, it's always different.
Like, everybody's humor is different,
but when no one goes for it,
you can't say like,
"The audience didn't get it."
You have to be like,
"God, I love it, but it didn't play."
And those are always heart breakers.
- Do not throw that bus.
- I can't hear you because I'm literally throwing a bus!
(Lydia grunts)
I'm throwing styrofoam. It's not very heavy at all.
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