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Rarely does a Melissa McCarthy character actually look like Melissa McCarthy. The comedian likes to disappear into a role. She changes her body language and dons wacky clothing. Often, a defining element of her character is what's on her head. Yes, McCarthy has a thing for wigs.
Back in summer 2015, upon the release of Spy, McCarthy spoke about her process with People. When she gets a script, she instantly gets an idea of her character's look. Then, she said, "I go immediately to a wig store and I try on a million things."
But McCarthy's obsession with wigs started long before her star rose to astronomical heights. In a 2008 TVGuide.com interview related to her role on Samantha Who?, McCarthy revealed she personally has "like, 100 wigs." She elaborated that they were for her work with legendary improv theater The Groundlings. "I wear them on-stage, and they're all mostly hideous," she said. "Bad short perm wigs, some mullets in there. Mostly it's the 55- to 60-year-old Midwestern woman hairdo. I have a strange amount of those!"
In The Boss, out Friday, McCarthy debuts another wig, this one on the head of Michelle Darnell, a character born out of her work with The Groundlings. Michelle's an incredibly wealthy business women who is brought down by a white-collar crime. She's a redhead.
In honor of McCarthy's excellent fake follicles, we've decided to tally up her best wigs. Our highly unscientific ranking formula has to do with how much the wigs make us laugh and how appropriate we think they are for the character underneath them.
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