When Melissa McCarthy heard Rob Marshall was putting the pieces together for a live-action take on Disney’s The Little Mermaid, she vowed to do whatever she could to snag the role of Ursula, the sea witch.
“I was so terrified, and there were moments when I felt like, ‘I have no business trying to meet with Rob Marshall, but if I don’t do it, I will regret it for the rest of my life,’ ” McCarthy told THR in Las Vegas ahead of receiving CinemaCon’s Cinema Vérité Award. It went well: “We kind of hit it off. He’s such a remarkable and lovely human.”
Living through a pandemic also helped her get inside Ursula’s head.
“Thinking about how much time she spent in isolation and what that had done to her mental state and paranoia, I was able to connect with her in new ways,” she explained. “Ursula is so damaged and such a juicy, dishy, conniving broad. I’ve always been, like, ‘That’s the gal I want to have a drink with.’ “
This story first appeared in the May 10 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
