Gill Pringle
“Both,” director, Ben Falcone, smiles when asked who was in charge on the set of The Boss: him or his wife, producer/star, Melissa McCarthy. “I would never have Melissa do anything that she didn’t want to do. Sometimes I’ll be like, ‘Can we try it that way?’ And if it’s a terrible idea, we’ll bail. But I think both, because I wouldn’t have her do something that she wouldn’t want to do. She’ll always try anything too, because she just wants stuff to work, and she’s such a good actor. She brings out the best in other actors. It’s a fun dynamic. It’s both, but she’s a producer, so technically, she could fire me,” Falcone laughs heartily.
A busy actor (Bad Words, Enough Said, What To Expect When You’re Expecting) and comedian (he was a member of the famous Groundlings, alongside Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo), Falcone has been married to Melissa McCarthy since 2005, and the couple have two children. After appearing with his wife in small roles in Bridesmaids, The Heat, Identity Thief, and Spy, Falcone made his directorial debut with the little seen 2014 comedy, Tammy, which saw McCarthy swap lines with Susan Sarandon. “I am married to one of the funniest people in the world,” says Falcone.
In the characteristically broad comedy that is The Boss, McCarthy plays the shallow, insensitive, self-absorbed, bullying, and brash business world titan, Michelle Darnell, who is sent to prison when she’s busted for insider trading. When she gets out of the big house, this big, bad boss attempts an image overhaul in order to re-establish her brand in a more positive manner, with the help of one of her hapless but decent-hearted underlings (Kristen Bell). But if you’re thinking that Michelle Darnell might be based on another briefly imprisoned business powerhouse, then think again. “It was before that,” Falcone says of infamous jailbird, Martha Stewart. “But once it happened to Martha Stewart, we were able to use it as a parallel. But the idea of the movie goes way back – Melissa created the character at The Groundlings, and then our friend, Steve Mallory, came up with the crux of the movie. His idea was about a mogul who loses everything, and the way that she comes back is to start a full profit version of the Girl Scouts. It seemed subversive and fun. And then the Martha Stewart stuff happened, and there’s even a line in the movie about that. So it wasn’t the genesis of it, but it was something that we could use as a real example.”
As with their previous effort, Tammy, Falcone and McCarthy pushed to keep the tone of their film positive, even while always being tempted to play fully into its raunchy humour and bad language. “We really try not to have too many mean spirited jokes, because that takes the energy levels of the audience down,” Falcone offers. “If you’re just saying it to poke fun at somebody and to get a huge reaction, and you don’t care if it’s negative or positive, it doesn’t work. We just want it to be really, really funny. There were a couple of things that seemed a bit mean that we didn’t want to keep in the film. We try to live our lives positively, and we think that we’re really nice people. So really, the funniest thing wins. But yes, sometimes I am like, ‘We went too far, but I hope I’m wrong.’ But there were things that we tried where there was no way. And as you start to put the movie together, you have to care about Michelle. She has to be this orphan who gets bounced around as a child, and we didn’t have a lot of time to show it, but you could tell even in the flashbacks that she was tough and that stuff was not always going her way. When her behaviour later is pretty severe, you can go with her because you’re like, ‘She earned it a little bit.’ And then in the end, she has to learn…if you didn’t have that, people would be like, ‘She’s just mean.’”
Does Falcone ever try to tone it down? “Yes,” the director replies. “It’s the balance of every [US] R rated comedy. Also, there are no penises in this movie. Most R rated comedies seem to have a penis pushed up against a plate of glass. We don’t do as much sexual stuff.” They might not do as much sexual stuff, but Falcone and McCarthy both know the value of a little sparkling improvisation, and as a director, the greatest gift that he has is time. “So many of the things that you’ve heard and that made you laugh from Melissa, were not in any script anywhere,” Falcone says. “You have to give her the space and time to be that character in the moment, and to do her best. That is truly my favourite thing. It’s been like that for any movie that she’s ever done, whether it’s Bridesmaids, Tammy, The Heat, or Identity Thief. She improvises tonnes. If you’re smart, you’re going to give her time. But it’s not just her. It’s with the other actors too. You can have a line, ‘That’s what I said.’ That’s your line, and maybe that’s how some TV shows might operate, and you say it five times. But I’m in the editing room and I don’t need it five times. I only need it once or maybe twice, so let’s try something else. I give her a lot of time.”
So again, Ben Falcone, who’s really the boss? “Our kids,” the director laughs. “They run the show, for sure. In my house, the real boss is the kids…most parents will tell you that too, I’m sure!”
The Boss is released in cinemas on April 14.
