Melissa McCarthy — whose new action-comedy "Spy" crushed it at the box office this weekend — is one of the biggest comedic stars in the world right now. Yet McCarthy's rise can be attributed in part to pioneers like Amy Sherman-Palladino, the "Gilmore Girls" showrunner who got McCarthy her first big break back in 2000, and who fought back against oppressive Hollywood beauty standards in order to get McCarthy cast in the first place.
At the “Gilmore Girls” reunion at this year's ATX Festival, show creator creator Amy Sherman-Palladino revealed how she fought with the network in order to cast the then-unknown McCarthy in the role of chef Sookie St. James.
“To get Melissa, I had to fight,” said Sherman-Palladino, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “She had a different energy and the part was written for a woman, there was no body type. I need someone funny who can really act. It was a tricky sell and it took awhile … everybody came around; it took a few shows.”
Later, Sherman-Palladino expressed the importance of displaying diversity, particularly diverse women, onscreen. “Different is sometimes not the easiest thing to embrace,” she said. "But that's true of life. If we want people to embrace more Melissa McCarthys and complicated parts, we have to keep writing the parts, fighting the fights and be willing to be fired and say to Mr. Person With Money, ‘You‘re wrong.’ Anything worth doing is a fight. If you don‘t have to fight for it, it‘s not worth doing.”’
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