She doesn’t like to play by any rules, and changed the Hollywood game with her flair for comedy. American actress Melissa McCarthy feels the world has moved on from the obsession to show ‘perfect women’ on screen and says actresses are not supposed to be perfect, but real.
“We were showing perfect women — they wore the perfect thing, they never got upset. I don’t know any of those women. I know women and men that are every colour and mood and emotion. Don’t be surprised when you see interesting, multi-dimensional women. That’s the goal,” McCarthy said here.
She added: “We are not supposed to be perfect; we are supposed to be real.”
McCarthy shared her views about portrayal of women on screen during an event organised here by Sony Pictures Entertainment for select media from across Asia for the “Ghostbusters” movie.
From her physique to her age, to the roles she picks, McCarthy is known for pushing boundaries, and treading new paths. The 45-year-old was named by Forbes magazine as the third highest paid actress in the world last year, and is a name to reckon with in the world of comedians.
The Los Angeles-based actress asserts that she feels “incredibly powerful” when she comes across real portrayal of women on the silver screen.
“I think it is always incredibly powerful when we see, in films and in art, the women that we are surrounded by. I am surrounded by strong, flawed, funny, heroic, crazy, loving women. And I think, for so long, we weren’t showing real women,” McCarthy said.
The actress has carved a niche for herself on the big screen as well as small screen with shows like “Gilmore Girls” and “Mike & Molly”.
McCarthy is known for films like “Bridesmaids”, “The Heat”, “Identity Thief” and “The Boss”, and is earning applause for her recent release “Ghostbusters”. The film released in India on July 29.
Paul Feig courted controversy for his decision to switch the male cast of the famous 1984 eponymous American supernatural horror comedy with women.
But McCarthy supports his choice as she feels “variety is the spice of life”.
“I’m not the type of woman who’s like ‘Oh, men’. I work with him (Feig) all the time. I have the dreamiest husband (Ben Falcone) in the world; most of my best friends are men. I think everybody gets a crack at it. But I like women. They’re pretty cool to me,” she said.
(The writer’s trip was at the invitation of Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) India. Sugandha Rawal can be contacted at [email protected])
