Curiocity: McCarthy's Journey To 'Mike & Molly'

Melissa McCarthy created a pretty small window for what it would take to get her back on TV after becoming pregnant with her second daughter.

After 10 years of steady work, both on TV and in films, McCarthy said she was ready for a bit of a break but didn't want to completely close the door.

"I said, 'Here's my list,' which was basically unattainable and a nice way of saying I don't want to work for a while," she said on Tuesday. "I said it has to be a minute from my house, I would have to be in love with the script, I would have to be with the lead, it would have to be single camera and I do not want to do something where I'm just the dingbat that just goes, 'Oh Bill.' I said she has to have a brain. So after that whole list it was like, 'Good luck to you.' And I shut the door."

Lucky for us, but perhaps unlucky for that whole break idea -- McCarthy was handed the one script that fit that tiny window -- a new CBS show called, "Mike & Molly."

At first, she still wasn't 100 percent sold on the idea. After hearing the premise, she dismissed it, in the same way some critics did before the show even aired labeling it as just another "typical weight-issue show."

"(My agent) said, 'Oh and they meet at an (Overeaters Anonymous) meeting,' and I said, 'No thank you,' but then I read it anyway and I said, 'Oh God, I love it.'"

The show was different. It wasn't just about two "overweight" people -- it was about two real people. Two characters at the beginning of a relationship, moving through life's ups and downs in a less than perfect yet quite comedic way. And the kicker -- and perhaps what sold McCarthy -- it had a lot of heart.

"I love the characters. Everyone makes such a big deal of the weight aspect, but to me it's like, I've been reading scripts for 20 years, I don't read a lot of fully formed female parts," McCarthy said. "She's smart, she has the job she loves, she has the job she wanted and she's great at it. She's confident and funny and has friends and likes herself. That's not easy to come by."

McCarthy stopped by the WCCO-TV studios on Tuesday, after the show's premiere Monday night. It was the first time she saw the final, "polished" pilot and she said she was happy to see it was just as funny and heartwarming as she thought.

"I still really loved it," she said. "It's nice to see. You get so excited about it and you finally see the finished product and it's an awfully good feeling to be like, 'Oh, I still love it. I didn't make it up in my head.'"

After successful stints on "Gilmore Girls" and "Samantha Who?" McCarthy certainly isn't a stranger to the television world, but taking the lead is a whole new chapter.

"To take on a lead role is wildly exciting," she said. "It's a whole new thing. It's a challenge acting-wise, because it's not just popping in, saying a crazy line and being like, 'Now I'm going to leave because I only work two days a week.'"

McCarthy said it's a whole different animal maintaining a star character, but it's also extremely rewarding to really get invested into a show that you believe in. And with "Mike & Molly," McCarthy has that same hunch she did when filming "Gilmore Girls" -- that this could be the makings of something great.

"You can only do so many stories on weight. You can only do so many stories on a specific thing. But on family, sisters, friends, love, fights, you can write a million episodes," she said. "There's endless places to go with that. That's all of our lives, there's no end to it. It's not one topic, it's this messy ball of yarn. You keep unwinding it and more good stuff comes out."

No matter what happens in the future, the journey getting there has already been a fantastic ride for the Midwestern girl who grew up on a corn and soybean farm near Chicago.

"Sometimes I think, 'My God, I'm from Plainville, Illinois, I don't know how this happened?'" she said.

McCarthy credits her sense of humor to her dad, who has always been the king of storytelling. She said after years of hearing her dad tell hilarious stories, it rubbed off and before she knew it, she was the one cracking her friends up with her comedic narratives. Before long, she was sharing that humor with a wider audience through stand-up and with the improv and sketch comedy troupe, The Groundlings Main Company -- also the place where McCarthy met the love of her life.

Life's gotten busy these days -- with two little girls and starring in her own sitcom -- and though she's still technically a member of the Groundlings crew, McCarthy admits she'll probably have to close that chapter of her life, even though that means breaking a piece of her heart.

"I love that place. I love it, I love it. Everything about it. I think it made me a better performer, actor, listener, everything. It completely freed me up to be like, any weird thing I think of, there's a place for it," she said. "It and my 50 wigs."

McCarthy said she's gone through the process of writing the letter to officially leave the company, but then finds herself immediately deleting it, unable to make the words and the actual departing stick.

"At some point, I'm actually going to have to send it but it'll kill me," she said.

Still, when one door closes, another one always opens -- and in this case, it's a door leading to a show that McCarthy hopes will have a little something for everyone and give viewers an escape from the daily grind.

"I think that's why we watch TV. I watch TV to get caught up in the story, or have something catch me off guard and make me laugh," she said.

Though the show's still in its infancy, McCarthy has high hopes that it will pull viewers in through its hilarious characters and heartwarming undertones. And on the chance that it does become a huge success, McCarthy said she knows how to keep her ego in check.

"(My husband) took my 3-year-old Vivian to see my billboard and they were in the car and he says, 'Wanna see something special?' and they were talking about going to go see this something special. And he pulls up to this huge, ridiculously big billboard (of "Mike & Molly") and she goes, 'Oh mama! ... Now, let's go see something special,'" McCarthy said, with a laugh.

Catch "Mike & Molly" at 8:30 p.m. Mondays on WCCO, Channel 4.

Sara Boyd is a web producer and columnist at WCCO.COM.