ML - Michigan Avenue

2013 - Issue 1 - Winter

Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!

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together the whole time. But at the end, she was leaving, and I burst out crying, saying "Saturday Night Live was such a big part of shaping what I thought was funny my whole life." I'm making a scene, and she says, "You know, I have one more day." And I thought, Well, perfect. I'm making a jackass of myself yet again. Also Teri Garr, to me, was just perfect. She could be that grounded character, so funny but such a good actress and just kind of magic. I love all of those women. MA: You started your career doing standup in New York. It's a long way from Plainfield to the stages of New York—how did you decide to go east? MM: I wanted to go into fashion, and I wanted to go to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. When that came up, my parents said, "No, you'll kill yourself in New York," because I was a wild child, and they were probably right. So I went to school in Illinois. Then I was living Reno Wilson and Billy Gardell with McCarthy in a season one episode of Mike & Molly. MA: When did you realize you have this ability to make people laugh? MM: My mom and dad are really funny—my dad can tell an amazing story. Even when I was little, I realized he could tell the same story over and over, and I'd watch him tell it to other people, and he would just kill it. I knew what he was going to say, but I still found it funny. At dinner together, it was the thing to do: tell a really funny story and make somebody laugh. I'm lucky that it's such a big part of what I get to do for my job. It's one of the best feelings in the world. MA: Who were some of your other comic idols when you were growing up? MM: Gilda Radner, Madeline Kahn, Jane Curtin—who I just got to work with this summer. She played my mom in a movie, and I held it 80 stage?" All the adrenaline. I think either you hate it or you're crazy enough to love it. And I was crazy enough to love it. I love the challenge of "My God, am I really going to put myself through that again?" And I thought, Yeah. You know, I fell on my face for like 20 years; I still fall on my face. I think part of what makes it fun is it doesn't matter how much you do it, everything, all the timing, everything has to work out just right. The audience has to be in the right mood. I enjoy that aspect of it. MA: Mike & Molly is in its third season and is a solid hit. Why do you think that show's characters resonate for so many people? MM: They're really relatable. [Creator and Executive Producer] Mark Roberts is also from Illinois, and he wrote somebody who's just like people he knew—and when you write what you know, you always get something stronger. I like McCarthy won an Emmy in 2011 for her role in Mike & Molly. in Boulder, Colorado, making costumes for a dance company and clothing for a million other clients in 15 million other jobs. I had a friend living in New York who was from Joliet, and he came out to visit and said, "What are you doing here?" and I said, "I don't know." Three or four days later, I packed everything up and moved to New York. The day we got there, we were standing in the grocery store, and he said, "You should go do an open mic night." I thought I was going to finish up school at FIT, but I did standup one night, and that changed everything. I never went back. MA: You were a hit on your first night? MM: Oh, no, not at all. I just mean I loved it. I loved the feeling, even the weird parts that should almost be bad. The nerves. "Why am I possibly doing this? Why would I walk up on that that Molly is a schoolteacher, and she's good at it, and she likes it. So often [on TV], someone from some network says, "You have to be a schoolteacher by day, but you're a crime fighter by night." But there are 9 million cops and teachers, and a lot of them are married. I also don't think there are a lot of sitcoms right now that aren't afraid to have a very sweet moment or even kind of a tender moment. It's the up and down that makes it that much more of a compelling story. One minute, you're laughing, the next you're upset. It's a roller coaster. MA: How did it feel when you won the Emmy for Mike & Molly? MM: Bonkers. Like I still can't quite believe it. It was so surreal that I was there. You try for so many years to just get a job, then to get on something that PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL ANSELL/©CBS/WARNER BROS. (MIKE & MOLLY STILL); STEVE GRANITZ/GETTY IMAGES (EMMYS); EVAN AGOSTINI/GETTY IMAGES (REYNOLDS); THEO WARGO/NBCUNIVERSAL/GETTY IMAGES (FALLON) parents' chagrin. And my dad, who grew up in Hyde Park, said, "We tried to be somewhere quiet and move you out to the country, and no matter what we did, you were like a magnet, all you wanted to do was be in the city." I wanted to go to the Art Institute. I went to Medusa's. I don't know if it's still even there. MA: It's not, but it's legendary. MM: Especially for me, because I'm from such a small town, to go into Chicago to a nightclub— even though it was a juice bar and it was 21 and under, it still blew my mind. I couldn't even believe I was doing something that cool, and I just loved it. I've always loved the energy of the city. Anytime I go back now, I think everything has made just such huge leaps since I was in high school. I go back and think, Oh, my God, it's so amazing. I'd love to come shoot a movie in Chicago. That would be really fun. MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM 078-081_MA_FEAT_CS_Winter13.indd 80 1/2/13 12:46 PM

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