Melissa McCarthy was made “physically ill” by a brutal film boss.
“The Little Mermaid” actress, 52, said she soaked up so much “nastiness” on the set of a movie she didn’t name, her eyes swelled up and colleagues wept.
McCarthy, who runs a production company with her actor husband of 18 years Ben Falcone, 49, told “The Observer” when asked if she had ever come up against huge egos in the entertainment business: “I did work for someone once who ran such a volatile, hostile set that it made me physically ill. My eyes were swelling up, I was absorbing all of this nuttiness.
Watch video:
“There were people weeping, visibly so upset by this one person. And I think that’s why the manipulation worked, because to get to me, this person would fire people I loved, which kept me quiet.”
McCarthy told how she shut down the nastiness: “It was very effective. Then one day, I was like, ‘It stops today!’
“I just kept saying to them, it stops, it stops. And I know now I’ll never keep quiet again.”
McCarthy said before she and husband Falcone, with whom she has children Vivian, 16, and Georgette, 13, they performed a “crazy check” on them to see if they are nice.
She said about how they “demand” kindness: “You know, we were so astounded and grateful at getting to build our own little worlds, we were like, ‘We have to build the one we’ve always talked about, where everybody gets to have an opinion and everyone is really nice. It’s going to run a lot better with no screamers or crazy egos bumbling around. Why would we risk destroying that?’”
McCarthy said she is so fixated on a need for compassion she wants to scream niceties at strangers.
She said: “Actually, I would not mind spending a day on the street corner just randomly complimenting people, really loudly.
“‘You have terrific pants on,’ or ‘I love your fringe!’ I’m going to have to do it, aren’t I?”
