In The Starling, Melissa McCarthy and Chris O’Dowd play Lilly and Jack Maynard, a couple who’ve experienced a traumatic loss. After Lilly is left alone in her home to deal with the aftermath, a combative starling nests in her yard and turns her life upside down. As Lilly goes between her husband Jack and the starling, she begins to understand how to grieve in her own way.
While well-lauded for their comedy chops, McCarthy (Bridesmaids, Mike and Molly, Gilmore Girls) and O’Dowd (This is 40, Girls, The IT Crowd) skillfully navigate the balance between heavy, dramatic turns and comedic moments in this film. The actors join Starling director Theodore Melfi (Hidden Figures, St. Vincent) to discuss how they blended tragedy with lightheartedness to create something entirely relatable and realistic in The Starling.
Jack Maynard (Chris O’Dowd) and Lilly Maynard (Melissa McCarthy)
Queue: Melissa and Chris, what was your first role and how did it feel to book the gig?
Melissa McCarthy: I got my first part in a film because of Jennifer Coolidge, the amazing, funny, wonderful actress and great human being. I had no manager, I had no agent, and I had no way of getting an audition. She called the casting director and said, “You should see this girl.” I didn't even know she knew I existed. We were at the Groundlings Theater together. I got a call, I went in, had an audition — which there would have been no way for me to get — and my first job was in the movie Go that John August wrote.
It was my first time ever; I’d only done theater. I got my agents right after that, but I love that I got that first role because another woman, without ever being asked, just did something really nice for me. So I love Jennifer Coolidge.
Chris O’Dowd: Well, I have a surprisingly similar story with Jennifer Coolidge. No, but wouldn’t that be wild, though?
McCarthy: That would be amazing.
O’Dowd: I got a little roll on a film when I was still in drama school, and I was working with a guy called Hugh Bonneville who played Robert Crawley in Downton Abbey, and a week after we wrapped, I was in the pub, probably spending whatever few quid I had made, and about to go back to drama school, and he called up and said, “I think I remember you saying that you didn’t have an agent.” And I said, “Oh, no, I haven’t sorted that yet.” And he says, “Well, I’ve got a meeting with my agent for you tomorrow.” And that’s the agent that I’ve had since. That was 22 years ago. Hugh had got my number off production or something. It was just such a kind act. But yeah, getting that first job is such a buzz. Oh my gosh, what a buzz. You just feel like anything is possible.
Ted, what was your first job in Hollywood and how did it feel to book that gig for you?
Theodore (Ted) Melfi: My first directing job was a Mexican American music video called “Lluvia,” which means rain in Spanish. Basically, I was friends with a bunch of guys, and one of them was an editor, and he had a small production company that did Latin music videos for Univision. They had this music video my friend Neneh was going to direct, and then Neneh got sick and they said, “Ted, would you just do it?” So I went to Univision and I gave them a pitch, and the pitch was, “It’s about love, and how he’s trying to find his lost love, and it’s going to rain the entire video.”
The artist was Jessie Morales and he goes, “Yeah, are there going to be some girls?” And I said, “Yeah, but I thought it was about you and this one relationship.” He goes, “Can we have a speed boat?” I go, “Yeah, but I can’t really make it rain on the boat.” Anyway, I ended up shooting this music video with Jessie Morales on a speedboat with about 15 bikini-clad models and it was called “Lluvia” and my concept was never fully realized.
Melissa McCarthy
Melissa and Chris, what film made you fall in love with acting?
McCarthy: Oh, God. I think I fell in love with acting on stage, doing plays in New York, but a magic movie for me is Planes, Trains and Automobiles because it does exactly what you don’t see that often — and I think it’s the greatest thing on Earth — that Ted does really well. It is incredible because you’re laughing so hard at one moment and then the next moment, you’re just shattered. And because it’s like life, you relate to it. You know that feeling of, We were just laughing, how has it all been shattered? or vice versa. Watching John Candy in that movie, I knew he was doing something really special, and I didn’t know the technique or why it was so good, but I know what I felt, and that movie still looms very large for me.
O’Dowd: When I was a late teenager, an older friend got me into the Cassavetes movies, so I watched Mikey and Nicky and A Woman Under the Influence and I was like, Oh, my God, this is a whole other thing. In the 90s, I think things had gotten quite broad, so it felt like, Oh my, this is so specific. They’re not acting at all. It’s like a home video. But then I discovered they were acting and I thought, Oh, that’s interesting, isn’t it?
What was the last thing you binge watched on Netflix?
Melfi: Last thing I binged on Netflix? Oh, God. My wife and I just watched The Kissing Booth 1 and 2, and we’re into 3.
McCarthy: Oh, my God. The Breaker Upperers is Netflix, isn’t it? I watch a million different things all the time. I went crazy with Marcella, and we just re-watched The Umbrella Academy. And, of course, I have to say, Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal, and Greed, the documentary that we did. So thank you, Netflix.
O’Dowd: The last thing I watched on Netflix — and I think it’s the best comedy going on at the moment — is I Think You Should Leave. And I think I’ve watched the second season three times already.
Melissa McCarthy and Theodore Melfi
What’s one thing you always bring on set?
Melfi: It changes from set to set. For some reason, with this movie I got addicted to mangoes. I have a real mango problem.
McCarthy: We’re talking six or seven a day.
Melfi: Yeah. And really the limit is three. After three, it has diminishing returns, but I carried mangoes, and then people got me mango knives, and then people got me mango cutting boards, and then people got me mango slicers. So this movie was mangoes.
O’Dowd: I don't know if there is anything I bring to set other than a sunny disposition. And a whistle. I bring a whistle just to drive everybody wild. No, I don’t think there’s anything I bring to set.
McCarthy: I bring snacks. I like to bring grapes and Babybels. Occasionally, if it’s a real treat day, there’s pimento cheese and celery. I should have said literature and math books. Instead, it was primarily cheese and grapes.
Theodore Melfi and Sklyer Gisondo
Do you use music to get in the zone on set?
McCarthy: No, I don’t, not on set. When I’m prepping for stuff, I have songs that I listen to, but once I’m on set, if it’s something that really needs a different head space, I just go quiet. I’ll just find my space.
O’Dowd: If I know there are going to be a couple of days of really intense stuff, I’ll pick some stuff beforehand, and then when I’m doing prep for it, and then hope that the sense memory takes over. And it’s like Bon Iver, Damian Rice, and music that’s just going to bring you into or maintain this level of tragedy that you can hopefully emerge from.
Melfi: I usually build a playlist when I’m writing something. I just start to get song ideas in my mind. I have a playlist for every script I’ve written, and I just listen to that over and over and over again until my family hates me. I just keep doing it, and that helps me. But on set, no. On set, it’s a time for me to focus and I can’t listen to music.
Did you take any keepsakes with you after the movie wrapped?
Melfi: I did. I took the nasty recliner that Melissa McCarthy sits in outside her house.
McCarthy: You did?
Melfi: I did. And then I had to give it away because I’m married and so it’s gone, but I took that for a few minutes and I had that for a few minutes. And then I took the Wally signs. I have the big Wally sign for the grocery store, I took that. I got a lot of little knick knacks actually, off the set.
McCarthy: I have a Wally sign, and then my name tag and then Ted’s AMEX.
O’Dowd: I think I stole that Book of Ireland that was in the library.
Melfi: Oh, we’ve been looking for that.
O’Dowd: It had some really nice pictures.
Melissa McCarthy and The Starling crew in this behind-the-scenes shot
This film does a great job of using humor to navigate difficult themes. We can start with Ted, how did you find that balance?
Melfi: I’ve heard Chris say this a few times, but I don’t think there’s life without humor. I don’t think there should be material without humor. And I don’t think you have to find any balance other than honesty. You just let actors honestly feel what they’re going through dramatically and what they’re going through comedically, and you allow the drama and comedy to meet in the middle, because if you’re too broad and over the top, it’s not going to work and if you’re too dire and destitute, it’s not watchable.. You’re just shooting real life.
McCarthy: I think you need the humor to show the pathos, and you need the grief to show the humor. It’s like life, you need that balance. I don’t know anyone who is up and happy and “on” all the time: I don’t know that person. I can’t relate to them. I think you need that flow, and with no one forcing it, which Ted never made us feel, I could look at Chris and I think we could feel when something just went lighter or when it didn’t, and we were just able to read each other. When one goes, the other goes with it, and when you have a really lovely set, you’re able to do that.
O’Dowd: I’d echo what the others said. There are moments when you’re doing a scene and you can feel the weight of the emotion in the room. And this part of you just goes, I wonder how I can undercut this best? and I think, at some stage — I can’t remember if it made the movie or not — I managed to get in a Borat reference because it felt like, I’m talking, I’m espousing the wonders of my wife and her support of nature, but it’s very hard to say “my wife” without repeating it with Borat’s “My wife,” and it is just this little devil in you, I think. It’s not even a devil to cause trouble, but to immediately make people go, “Fuck, yeah, I do that too.” And somehow, it can make an audience think, “Well, maybe I can feel the other things too.” So it is an unusual balance to try and find, but that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?