Melissa McCarthy Was Terrified to Play Chris Farley at ‘SNL’s 40th Anniversary Show

This weekend’s Saturday Night Live host, Melissa McCarthy, shouldn’t be afraid of much on the Studio 8H stage. She’s already been crowned SNL royalty, a member of the Five Timers Club who drops in to do killer cameos like former Trump press secretary Sean Spicer. 

But one moment rattled the comedian to the point of nearly passing out — playing Chris Farley’s Motivational Speaker character on Saturday Night Live’s 40th anniversary show. 

Pre-fame McCarthy was a self-proclaimed Farley superfan. When she first moved to Los Angeles, she was working at a Starbucks when Farley arrived for a frappuccino. “I was so excited because he loomed pretty largely for me,” she told Conan O’Brien back in 2013, per E! News.  “You could just tell he didn't want everybody to make a fuss, and so in my poorly executed way of, like, don't freak him out, I just kept staring at him.” 

“At one point,” she admitted, “I got so overwhelmed because he was right there, that I started crying.”

But that reaction was nothing compared to dressing up in Farley’s original Matt Foley costume for the anniversary show.  “It was really his jacket and they just kind of like clipped it back,” she told Andy Cohen, according to Entertainment Weekly. “And they're like, ‘We're gonna take it in, but we don't wanna damage it. And we're gonna do all this.’”

McCarthy had her first encounter with Farley’s film buddy, David Spade, while wearing the jacket backstage. “I think we were wondering, ‘Is that the real jacket?’ Spade remembered when McCarthy guested on the Fly on the Wall podcast. 

“I just was so nervous to do someone that I literally watched,” she told Spade. “I have a drawing of (Farley). I adored his humor and how vulnerable he was.”

Wearing her comedy hero’s actual costume was overwhelming. Waiting offstage to enter the Weekend Update set, McCarthy was a nervous wreck. “The sweet stage manager came up and he goes, ‘Honey, are you okay?’" The comic's legs were bouncing so much that she had to hold onto the door to stay upright. She wasn't sure she could even turn the doorknob to enter.  "I was not in control of my body. And I've never done that before. I was just rattled.”

She called her husband, Ben Falcone, who told her to channel her inner Farley. “Come through that door like a train,” he said. “Do it to make him proud.” 

“I literally was like, ‘I'm either gonna black out or I'm gonna come through like a train,’” McCarthy remembered. "So thank God, I think I picked the train.”