Melissa McCarthy’s fearless Megan in Bridesmaids turned a wedding comedy into a breakthrough moment.
What happened to Melissa McCarthy after that? She kept working, moving between studio comedies, dramatic roles and streaming projects. As of November 2026, her next announced television release is Netflix’s The Murder of JonBenét Ramsey, scheduled for December 10.
That role follows a career with more variety than her broadest comic characters sometimes suggest. The actress who played Ursula also earned an Oscar nomination for portraying writer Lee Israel.
Television came before her movie breakthrough
McCarthy was already a familiar television performer before Bridesmaids. Her early series work included Gilmore Girls and Samantha Who?, followed by Mike & Molly, which ran from 2010 to 2016. The Golden Globes’ career biography traces that progression.
In 2011, she won the Emmy for lead actress in a comedy series for playing Molly Flynn. The Television Academy’s official results record the win.
It was an unusually visible turning point: a television award arrived in the same year as the film that introduced her to a much larger movie audience. Her career did not begin with one scene-stealing performance, even if that performance changed how widely people knew her.
Original photograph, shared under CC BY-SA 2.0.
Bridesmaids opened the way to leading film roles
McCarthy received a supporting-actress Oscar nomination for Bridesmaids. The Academy’s awards database lists her nomination for the film.
She subsequently worked again with director Paul Feig on The Heat, opposite Sandra Bullock, then Spy and Ghostbusters. Those films put her in action-comedy settings where her characters could drive the story.
Her collaborations with husband Ben Falcone formed another strand, including Tammy, The Boss and Life of the Party. The projects were distinct from one another, but together they made it clear that McCarthy had moved well beyond being a familiar supporting face.
The career pattern resembles the broader shift explored in Tina Fey’s work after 30 Rock: an established comic performer can also help create the material that keeps a career moving.
Can You Ever Forgive Me? revealed another side
In the 2018 film Can You Ever Forgive Me?, McCarthy played Lee Israel, a celebrity biographer whose struggling career led her into literary deception. Richard E. Grant played her friend Jack.
Searchlight’s official account identifies Marielle Heller as the director and Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty as the screenwriters.
This was a smaller, more intimate setting than the action and physical mayhem of several of McCarthy’s comedies. The story centered on a writer’s deteriorating circumstances and a friendship complicated by dishonesty.
McCarthy’s performance earned a lead-actress nomination at the 2019 Oscars, as recorded in the Academy’s nominations announcement. Her two Oscar nominations therefore came in different acting categories for markedly different films.
For anyone who knows her principally from comic set pieces, Lee Israel is an essential part of the answer to what she did next.
She also helped write her own starring vehicles
McCarthy’s work with Falcone includes writing as well as acting. They co-wrote Life of the Party, which Falcone directed.
The film casts her as Deanna, a mother who returns to college after her husband asks for a divorce. The complication is that she enrolls at the same university her daughter attends. Netflix’s guide to the film outlines both the premise and the couple’s creative roles.
That credit is useful context for a career often measured only by screen appearances. McCarthy has also participated in making the opportunities in which she appears.
Deanna’s story gives an adult woman a fresh start without pretending that embarrassment, family relationships or unfinished ambitions disappear along the way. It is a different use of McCarthy’s comedy from Megan’s disruptive presence in Bridesmaids.
Original photograph, shared under CC BY-SA 2.0.
Ursula and Unfrosted kept her in very different worlds
McCarthy played Ursula in Disney’s 2023 live-action The Little Mermaid. She and Ariel actress Halle Bailey introduced the trailer during the Oscars, according to Disney’s announcement.
The role placed her inside a large musical fantasy, with a recognizable villain and an audience extending beyond her adult comedies.
She then appeared as Donna “Stan” Stankowski in Jerry Seinfeld’s 2024 comedy Unfrosted. The character is a technician drawn into the film’s fictionalized battle over breakfast pastries.
Explaining the appeal to Netflix, McCarthy said, “I loved how eccentric and how unwilling to compromise she is.”
The two roles illustrate her continued willingness to work in heightened comic worlds, even as dramatic projects remain part of her career.
Her next announced release brings her back to drama
Netflix has scheduled The Murder of JonBenét Ramsey for December 10, 2026. McCarthy plays Patsy Ramsey opposite Clive Owen as John Ramsey and is also an executive producer.
The limited series dramatizes the family’s grief and public scrutiny following their daughter’s murder. It is an upcoming dramatic portrayal, and the case should not be treated as solved by a television narrative.
For McCarthy, it represents another substantial departure from the characters that first made moviegoers laugh. Her career has continued across comedy, drama, writing and producing. The next chapter is already announced, with its release still ahead.