Melissa McCarthy hopes Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss made her acting "a little better".
The 49-year-old actress stars alongside the pair in ‘The Kitchen’ – which is set in the 1970s and follows three women as they take over the Irish mob when their husbands are jailed – and she found them such a "high calibre", she can only hope they improved her own performance.
She said: "When you have people like Tiffany and Elisabeth working their best, you can only learn from them.
"When something isn’t working, Tiffany can change it a little and it works.
"When Elisabeth has difficult scenes in a crazy lake and it’s freezing, she can still give a beautiful performance.
"When you’re allowed to be around such a high calibre of people – like these two women – you soak that up and you hope to be a little better."
Melissa jumped at the chance to appear in the film.
Asked what convinced her to sign up for the female-driven drama, she told OK! magazine: "I thought, it’s about time! I loved the script and I loved the opportunity to work with Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss. I was in from the start."
The ‘Bridesmaids’ star initially made her name starring in comedies but has shifted to more dramatic fare in recent eyars, though she insisted that hasn’t been a conscious decision.
She said: "For me, I don’t register drama and comedy differently.
"I think I always start with the story and the character.
"If the story makes sense to me then that’s great.
"I tend to love a character that’s terribly flawed, I think there’s so much more to play."