'Bridesmaids' star Melissa McCarthy is on a roll

Melissa McCarthy's commitment to her character Megan in Bridesmaids, who dresses and acts like a hyper-masculine gym teacher, was so absolute I was shocked to see her with styled hair and a full face of makeup in "Mike and Molly" and on the red carpet. McCarthy has long been a working actor in Hollywood, but since the success of Bridesmaids she's gotten three projects off the ground.

First, she will star in Tammy, a project she co-wrote with her husband Ben Falcone (who played the air marshal her character comes on to in Bridesmaids). She will play a woman who loses her job at Hardee's and finds out her husband has been cheating on her. Ready to escape her daily life, she goes on a road trip with her foul-mouthed, eccentric grandma. Veteran TV director Beth McCarthy-Miller (not related to Melissa) will direct the New Line project, which is in pre-production. I've seen plenty of road trip comedies, but none with this casting.

Today, two more McCarthy projects were announced. The first is more Falcone's project, but she will serve as co-executive producer of a comedy TV pilot that centers on a 37-year-old living at home with his parents.

The other project, Identity Theft, will star McCarthy as a woman who steals the identity of a man (Jason Bateman). Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses) just signed on to direct, and word is production will start in early 2012.

I'm impressed that McCarthy has been able to not only sell her own projects, but actually be cast in an existing screenplay. Perhaps the role in Identity Theft was originally written for a man? Or the joke was that the thief looks nothing like the person in the ID but somehow she's still able to pass for the guy? Everyone in Bridesmaids was funny, but McCarthy took the most risks. Hollywood gives Oscars to actors that make themselves look ugly for roles, and McCarthy did the same thing for comedy and it's made her career take off. With so many successful female-driven projects in the mix right now, I'm happy that McCarthy is among them.