Melissa McCarthy revealed her nerves as she took on the role Ursula for the live action remake of The Little Mermaid.
Bridesmaids star Halle Bailey takes the lead role as the antagonist in Disney’s highly anticipated film. The cast also includes Jonah Hauer King, Simone Ashley, and Jacob Tremblay.
Melissa revealed that she had to prepare for the role and was nervous.
‘I loved Ursula always, and the more we just kept talking about it, I kept thinking of her like she’s in a constant cabaret act,’ Melissa began on Tuesday’s The One Show.
She continued: ‘I worked for many, many months because singing is not my normal area, I was so nervous, and Pat Caroll did it so beautifully in the original.
‘I was terrified. I was terrified and eventually, it became like this: “Well you’re going to bomb or you have to let all the nerves go and just take a swing at it.”
‘So that’s what I did.’
Melissa, in addition to preparing the vocal side of her character needed help with tentacles.
She said: ‘The rehearsal process, and you never get a rehearsal process for films usually, we had all of this time to rehearse and when we first got there, [the costume designer Colleen Attwood] This beautiful outfit was ordered by me.
‘And I was like, you get different rehearsal outfits? Only in Colleen’s World’
Melissa continued to say that her belt had eight, ten foot long tentacles.
‘Each one was puppeted by a dancer, and I was like, “This is too much work for everybody.”
‘And [director] Rob Marshall was like, “No I want you to know the space you hold, and I want you to know how imposing you are when you’re 25 feet up.”
‘You know, I was never on the ground, and suddenly, I was like, “Oh”, this is a very short woman suddenly 20 feet up and 30 feet across, and I was like “I can pick on people.”‘
She added: ‘Everyone looked so tiny, it really was amazing.’
Elsewhere, Melissa praised her co-star Halle, calling her ‘a remarkable young woman.’
She has shared adorable moments of her life with fans who are in awe.
Melissa commented: ‘You just see all these young kids and young girls at the premiere, any little kid that was there, when Halle walks by them they’re like [gasps]They’re gasping, and rightly so. She’s worth a gasp.
‘You see them fill with everything, they’re seeing themselves represented and the whole movie is a love letter to the world we live in, which is diverse and different and wonderful.
‘You have to embrace it.’
The One Show broadcasts The One Show weekdays at 7 pm.
Source My Celebrity Life.
