Our first guests are two of our favorites.
They star together in the new movie Thunder Force.
Please welcome my friends, Melissa McCarthy
and Octavia Spencer.
[APPLAUSE]
Hi, guys.
So a lot of people don't know this,
but you're really best friends in real life.
How long have you known each other?
Ooh, what-- more than 20 years.
25 years?
[LAUGHTER]
What'd you say?
I said more than 20.
Close.
Oh, yeah, more than 20.
Yeah.
We're soft, but we're coming in at a 25.
Yeah.
But we can [AUDIO OUT] and say over 20.
Yeah.
It sounds like Melissa is paying more attention to counting
the years than Octavia.
But that's OK.
Melissa, so you're in Australia.
Yeah.
How are you keeping in touch?
How are you both keeping in touch?
Zoom has become a magical thing.
Once a week, Octavia and I do this weird thing.
It started during the--
I don't know-- a quarter of the way into the pandemic.
And we just weren't seeing people.
And she'd come and sit in my driveway
and we'd sit like 20 feet apart.
And then somehow we were like, let's do a group cocktails
thing every Friday night.
And so we started getting the group together.
And then Ben was like, I have to do something use--
he was like, I'm going to watch a different Oscar-winning
movie every week.
And everyone's like, ooh, I'll do that.
And then someone's like, I'll do a Q&A on Friday.
And whoever wins gets like stupid prizes.
So we started 3o--
what is it?
36 weeks ago?
We've watched 36 Oscar-winning movies.
I think we started with A Man for All Seasons or something.
And then by the time we got to Lawrence of Alab--
Lawrence-- almost said Lawrence of "A-Labia."
[LAUGHTER]
Different movie!
So let me get this straight.
You're watching porn.
Is that--
[LAUGHTER]
[AUDIO OUT] so we've watched 36 weeks of porn.
It's very enriching.
Lawrence of Arabia, different movie--
and somebody dressed up in full costume.
And it's a bunch of writers, actors, and producers.
And it was the most pathetic thing.
Because one by one you saw people like,
oh, you're going to show up in costume?
OK.
And one by one, people were like, I'll be right back.
And they would come back with--
and it's all just--
it's like a paper towel hat.
We're making it out of like socks in like old bras.
And now we all dress up every week.
Sometimes it's inanimate objects from the movie,
sometimes it's characters.
And it's just frankly gotten out of hand.
It's pretty elaborate.
You guys always do the best job, you and--
well-- well, yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
You always do.
I'm always on the tail end.
Really?
It's pretty great.
Like, someone built a full Sherman tank out of cardboard,
that operated.
Wow.
So I just also learned this this morning.
You know, I knew that y'all were friends.
But that you-- before y'all were famous,
you tried to get on The Price is Right, both of you together?
Yes.
Wow.
Still Trying!
[LAUGHTER]
Well, and also we had like-- the rest of us-- like Octavia
just wanted to go.
She loved it.
And we were all like, she's bizarrely lucky.
She's the one that walks through a casino and touches a slot
machine, and it tips over and she's covered in gold bullion.
She's just super-lucky.
Her karma's, not shockingly, wonderful.
So we all met up at 5:00.
And I was for sure-- we were giving fake, sad stories of--
I was a farmgirl from a tough city.
And they were like, keep it moving.
They just didn't want anything to do with us.
But I did have a puppy.
I may have been in a bar the night before on Melrose Avenue,
called the Snake Pit.
And some real jerk was trying to sell a puppy in a bad way.
And he wanted $62.50, which I had $3.11.
So everyone in the bar chipped in money
to get this puppy away from this guy.
So somehow at 12:30 at night on Melrose Avenue, I was like--
well, let's go home, Phil.
And I walked home with this puppy.
So I brought it to The Price is Right.
Pretty early.
We have to be there very early.
We had to be there at 5:00 AM.
5:00 AM, yeah.
I don't know if you gave that dog a better life.
I mean, why-- what did you do with it at The Price is Right?
Eventually a friend came.
I had to stand in line for a couple hours with it.
And I didn't have a--
I did not expect the night before to be adopting a puppy.
So I had old vintage scarves around its neck.
I was like, ooh, this is not a good idea.
This is a choking mechanism.
So I had to just keep holding this wiggly puppy.
And eventually a friend came and was like,
OK, I'll take it for you while you go inside.
Well, I think that's a wonderful story
that you took the puppy away from somebody
who was selling it in a bad way, especially at midnight.
All right, we have to take a break.
We're going to talk about your new movie when we come back.
And now think of more porn names,
because that's a good one.
That really is.
There's many we can of.
That's a good one.
We'll be right back.
So your best friends in real life.
You play best friends and superheroes in Thunder Force.
Tell anybody about the movie.
Melissa, will you do it?
So we play-- on TV, we've been trying to do something.
We haven't done something together
in what seems like a million years.
And Ben wrote this movie called Thunder Force.
And it is about two people that have grown up together,
became best friends, as children really.
And then they kind of drift apart.
And then Octavia is this brilliant geneticist.
I drive a forklift and kind of drink beer.
So it seemed on-brand for me.
And we get back together as adults,
thinking we're going to go to this class reunion.
And she has developed-- we live in a world of miscreants
and super villains.
And Octavia's character's parents
were actually killed by the miscreants when she was little.
And her whole life drive has been to come up with technology
to fight back.
And she's done it.
And she's about to make herself into a superhero.
And I accidentally inject myself with it.
And you're both doing your own stunts.
So how was-- was that something you chose to do?
You didn't want stunt people?
Well, I'll say this.
Melissa does a lot of our own stunts.
[LAUGHTER]
Where Melissa is fearless, I am fearful.
She's fearless.
You don't like the harness.
Oh, she loves the harness.
You do not like the harness.
I love the harness.
I'm like, swing me around.
Throw me against walls.
And Octavia was in the harness, but it hadn't been lifted yet.
And she was like-- ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.
I'm like, you're not off the ground yet.
You're still sitting on the ground.
Hi, I'm Andy.
Ellen asked me to remind you to subscribe to her channel
so you can see more awesome videos, like videos
of me getting scared or saying embarrassing things,
like ball peen hammer--
and also some videos of Ellen and other celebrities,
if you're into that sort of thing.
[SCREAMS]
God!
[BLEEP]