INTERVIEW: Wendi McLendon-Covey Shares Her Love for ‘The Goldbergs,’ ‘Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar,’ ‘Sylvie’s Love,’ Women Supporting Women in Hollywood, and Her Favorite ’80s Trends

Wendi McLendon-Covey is staying very busy bringing one laugh at a time with her eighth season of The Goldbergs airing on ABC, as well as her new Lionsgate comedy, Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar, which released this month and has her starring alongside her former Bridesmaids castmates Kristin Wiig and Annie Monolo, who also wrote the script.

Wendi plays Micky Revelet in this soon-to-be cult classic, and in all of her fabulousness, she is the catalyst for Barb (Mumolo) and Star (Wiig) to go on a long-overdue trip to sunny Vista Del Mar, Florida. Micky is tan, knows what she wants, and seizes every moment of her amazing middle-aged life. She tantalizes Barb and Star with her uninhibited lifestyle and her recent “soul douche” vacay while living her very best life. 

Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar is an over-the-top kaleidoscope of middle-aged self-discovery and friendship that takes you on a girl’s trip adventure in which Barb and Star are looking to get their “shimmer” back.

McLendon-Covey jump-started her career at the famous Groundlings Theater in Los Angeles. She studied improv and sketch comedy which catapulted her into a lustrous resume of TV and film credits. Wendi has had roles in Sylvie’s Love starring Tessa Thompson, Regé-Jean Page, Tone Bell, and Eva Longoria, Blended with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, Tyler Perry’s Single Mom’s Club, and Steve Harvey’s Think Like a Man Too, opposite Kevin Hart and Regina Hall. She also has been seen in What Men Want, with Taraji P. Henson, Goosebumps: Haunted Halloween, starring opposite Ken Jeong, and the leading role in the drama Blush.

Wendi had a six-year run as Deputy Clementine Johnson on Reno 911! and roles on Modern Family, Lovespring International, Crossing Swords, and Rules of Engagement. She also hosted Ellen DeGeneres’ reality comedy show, Repeat After Me. 

New York Magazine’s Vulture called McLendon-Covey “The Greatest TV Mom of 2015.” She also earned two Critics’ Choice awards nominations.

Wendi spoke with Glitter on how she got her start, all about Mickey in Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, and her recent role in Sylvie’s Love. She also spoke about the progress women have made in Hollywood, all about The Goldbergs, and her emotional journey with fans and viewers during the pandemic. Find out what’s next on the horizon for this very funny and charismatic talent. Read on and be sure to watch her full interview on Glitter Magazine’s YouTube channel.

GLITTER: How did you get your start in acting, and when did you first have a love for comedy?
WENDI: Oh, I knew that from the time I was four-years-old. I was watching Carol Burnett and Mary Tyler Moore and, you know, all these women in their glam gowns and everything making people laugh. I was like, “That is for me; that is definitely what I want to do when I grow up.” So my mom kind of fostered that by giving my sister and I a bunch of dress-up clothes and dance lessons and all these things. When I turned 18, I said, well, I really want to do this. I want to go to acting school; my parents were like, “No, absolutely not. We are not paying for that. That’s stupid. Absolutely not.” So I didn’t really get started in earnest until I was about twenty-seven because at that point, I was married, and my husband was like, “I think you can do it.” So that’s where I finally got support. Prior to that, I was working different jobs, going to college, but dropping out and dropping back in, and I was just very lost because I knew what I wanted, and I couldn’t go for it.

GLITTER: So you’ve reunited with Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, ten years after Bridesmaids. What was that like to reunite with them?  
WENDI: I mean, it was pretty much the greatest thing in the world that they would even think of me again for this and again, we all met at the Groundlings Theater, which is if you don’t know what it is or you’re your readers don’t know, it’s a comedy theater in Los Angeles where they teach sketch writing and improv. A lot of people go on to have nice careers from being in that company, whether it’s on Saturday Night Live or other things. We’ve got a couple of Oscar winners from my group that, you know, that I came up with. So that was really meaningful for me to be a part of that. That’s where I met Annie and Kristen. And oddly enough, I met Kristen at a bridal shower where I also met Melissa McCarthy and Maya Rudolph. So, that was weird that you know, years later, we would go on to make Bridesmaids together, and I always thought that those two had a really good writing chemistry together. Every time they wrote a sketch, it was always a hit, and it was always bonkers. So after Bridesmaids came out, of course, everyone was like, “When are you going to write the next one? When are you going to write the next one?” Well, the last thing they wanted to do was write another Bridesmaids, because that took about five years to get off the ground, and by the time it did, it was like we’re tired of talking about this stuff. So for them to come up with this absolutely bananas idea and for it to actually get made is astounding. It’s the kind of movie we need right now because we all need to be taken out of our reality number one, and we need to just laugh at something that’s genuinely funny, and that’s what this film is. So for me to even get to see them in New Mexico, where we filmed my scene, it was like, “Yes! Yes! Oh, this is the greatest thing in the world.” It was such a gift. 

GLITTER: Kristin has mentioned that the film’s characters were developed from this “mom banter” that kind of went on, I believe, on the Bridesmaids set. I don’t know if you are privy to that, or can you tell us how that helped develop these characters?
WENDI: I didn’t know about that, but I could see the total mom banter happening. What I love about their work is that it’s about female friendships and the importance of that; it’s not, “Oh, we need to have a man, and that’s what’s going to validate us forever.” In the end, it’s always the female friendships that are first and foremost. So, I love that that Barb and Star are such good friends that they would go and sit on their “special couch” on their days off and just talk. I mean, listen, if it makes midlifers seem really cool, I’m all for it.

GLITTER: Speaking of that, the film Barb and Star is just like this real-life Candyland board game for middle-aged females and all their fabulousness. Kristin also mentioned that the characters were written to be celebrated, more so than made fun of. I get that from your character, Mickey. I mean, she’s living her best life. She’s tan. She’s going on vacation. I want to be doing what she’s doing. So what was it like to be a part of that celebration of these characters, and can you just tell us a little bit about your role as Mickey?  
WENDI: Well, my character is the one that originally has the original “soul douche” at Vista del Mar and, you know? Listen, they live in a small town in Nebraska, so for them to go have fun and cocktails, it’s like, “Yes! More of that, please!” The funny thing about it is that when you’re— and this is the truth of it all— when you’re younger, you want to go places because you want to see and be seen and you’re worried about how everybody’s looking at you and judging you. And by the time you hit your 40s, you’re like, “Who cares?” You know? “This is what I’m wearing today, and I don’t care what you think about it! Yes!” So there’s something very freeing about getting older. You know, I started a whole podcast about it with my best friend. It’s like we don’t feel any different than we felt when we were 15 years old. It’s just we’re a little older now. We got a little bit of money. So what are we going to do? Exactly. And so that was really fun to play. I love these gals; Barb and Starr have been in Nebraska for so long that they just don’t even know what to expect when they go on vacation, and they do need to find their “shimmer” again. They do need to find that inner spark. I think that was a great way to put it. “I lost my shimmer.” That was adorable. 

GLITTER: How does it feel to be a part of films with so much “girl power” behind the scenes?  
WENDI: You know, there’s a different vibe on those kinds of sets, and it’s palpable, and there’s a different kind of joy and camaraderie. I’m not saying it’s better or worse. I’m just saying I’ve worked on both, and if you’re going to spend 12 hours a day on set, you want to go to a place where the tone is uplifting. Where you feel like you’re doing a good job and you’re not being talked down to or mansplained to, if it’s a female-driven movie, I can’t tell you how irritating it is to have a man tell you what women sound like when they talk. We don’t need that. We have more experience with that. So, I know that Annie and Kristin foster a feeling of, “Hey, we’re all here, you guys, we’re all hired for a reason; bring your brilliance to the set and throw it into the mix. We want to hear from you.” Like they’re very collaborative creators.  

GLITTER: Do you feel there’s room for improvement in Hollywood with opportunities for women? 
WENDI: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It is getting better, believe it or not, for all the winding of, “Oh, we need to change this.” It is getting better. I’ve worked in the business long enough to see. Like, wow, I think back to ten years ago, and I’m appalled. You know, things are really getting better, and I can tell because women themselves are empowering themselves to help out. How hard is it to pick up a phone and recommend your friend? It’s not hard. We need more of that in all industries, like don’t be afraid to help your friend out, this is not a competition, if someone benefits, we all benefit down the line. So that’s what I’m seeing more of, and I hope that continues. 

GLITTER: Can you tell us about your role as Lucy in Sylvie’s Love and what you took away from that film or what you loved about that film? 
WENDI: Yes, so Lucy was not so loosely based on Julia Childs, who had a very popular cooking show and everybody watched it, and in that era, women were expected to present a certain way on camera, you’re the happy housewife, you have no feelings. We’re going to cook. We’re going to cook for our man, blah, blah, blah. Personality not required. While my character is not at the forefront of the movie, it’s important because it’s how Sylvie works her way up to what she wants to do. So, for Sylvie to even say, “Hey, why don’t you just let this weird lady be herself?” And being right about that, that’s the kind of validation that, and it’s hard to believe that back in the day, that would be an outrageous thing to say at work, is, “Hey, have you ever just thought I know I’m just a lowly production assistant, why don’t you just let her do that?” Like, I have other ideas too, and I don’t think I’m wrong. Like that, that was a ground-breaking thing to do back then.

What I love about the movie, though, is, again, my character aside, because she’s an afterthought, but it’s a love story that isn’t set against the backdrop of something terrible happening. Culturally, it’s just a Black love story. That’s delicious. It has beautiful music and gorgeous costumes; it’s just a beautiful truffle of a movie, and it was an honor to be a part of something so stylistically thought out and niche.

GLITTER: The Goldbergs is on its eighth season. So congrats on that. What does this show mean to you, and what were just some highlights over the years? 
WENDI: I mean, we’re about to wrap season eight in about four weeks, and I am so thrilled that we’ve able to do this during a pandemic because, again, people need to laugh right now. A lot of people discovered our show during the pandemic because it’s on Hulu; you can binge the whole thing. To get those messages of, “Oh my God, thank you for doing this. You’re giving us stuff to watch with our kids. That we can all enjoy and that time is precious with families.” Now, I don’t have any kids, so I don’t know this, so to me, hearing that, it’s like, “Oh, good. Good, I’m glad we’re making an impact.” For me personally, it has been the greatest gift, the best job I’ve ever had. Every minute that I am on set is a blessing. I know I sound crazy, but I love everybody involved. I love every crew member, and at the end of this, whenever that is, I hope we go 10, 11 seasons. I don’t know. I know that I have a family. I know I have this big, beautiful extended family of like two hundred and fifty people that we’ve bonded together, and so highlights would be watching these kids get older. I look back at season one, and I’m like, “Oh my God, they were kittens; they were little kittens.” Working with George Segal, who is an American icon. Every day I see him, I pinch myself. Watching our writers excel and then watching some of these people have babies and start a family like we’ve been together that long. I know we’ve had almost 30 babies born from our crew. OK, we might have gone over that, actually. You know, I was a teenager in the 80s, so reliving all this stuff, but through the eyes of a mother. I will never stop apologizing to my own mother, and I wasn’t even a bad kid. Yeah, but, you know, back before, there were cell phones, and your parents really didn’t know where you were all the time. Now I think about that, oh my God, I would tear my hair out. And I understand Beverly, even though she’s a kook. I understand the instinct to act first and apologize later, and if I were a mom, I would be just as embarrassing. So I just can’t stress enough how much of a gift it’s been to me. I absolutely love it.  

GLITTER: Your character Beverly is always delivering laugh after laugh; are there times where you and the cast are just cracking up reading this script? 
WENDI: Oh, there are times when I have laughed so hard. I’ve cried my makeup off, and then we’ve had to reset, and I’ve held up production laughing so hard. Many of those lines have been delivered by the illustrious Troy Gentile, who plays Barry. Sometimes his delivery is so funny that I cannot hold it together. Then I laugh all the way home, thinking of something. There was a time on the pilot that I laughed so hard that I stopped production, and that was because I was supposed to deliver a line saying, “Barry had a fart that fooled him,” meaning Barry sh*t his pants. OK. I laughed so hard; I just couldn’t hold it together! I wasted so much time that day laughing. But, you know, that’s a pretty good day at work. Right?  

GLITTER: So we all love the 80s. I mean, I was there. I don’t know about everyone else. (laughing)
WENDI: No, you weren’t. 
GLITTER: Oh, yeah.  
WENDI: You are a baby; you were not. You must have been one.  
GLITTER: I was there. (laughing) What are some 80s trends that you loved?  
WENDI: Some 80s trends that I loved… There was a time when you would wear like long pencil skirts and maybe along best with a big shoulder pad top underneath the vest, big brooch right at the throat, and long strands of fake pearls. 
GLITTER: Molly Ringwald…  
WENDI: Molly Ringwald, totally, very chic. You know, I loved that look. Gosh, I suffered through so many bad haircuts in the 80s, though. I spend a lot of time thinking about that. I should have really gotten it together more, but Christie Brinkley as an icon or Paulina Porizkova. They were always like my beauty standard, which, of course, I never reached, but they were my inspirations, my fashion inspirations. I still love a lot of the music, and I still love John Hughes movies. I think even though some of the subject matter doesn’t totally hold up, the movies themselves are phenomenal and still bring out those same feelings. You know, and I love, to this day, to go to a good 80s concert. 

GLITTER: So I have a few last fun questions. Do you have a Barb and Star girls “Talking Club?” If so, what is your dish of choice, or what would be your dish of choice?  
WENDI: Well, my dish of choice if I were to get invited to a talking club, I would do a seven-layer dip because that knocks everybody’s socks off; that’s what I’m known for. (laughing) I would not have the talking club at my own house because I do have a lot of cats, and some people are allergic. Also, my cats are allergic to strangers. (laughing) 

GLITTER: We saw in the movie, Barb, and Star, jumping off a cliff; have you ever done anything that was physically liberating in your life?  
WENDI: Oh. Yes! Yes! I am part of an adventure club with a bunch of other broads, and sadly we have not been able to meet for a long, long time, but we did a ropes course. Where you’re like way up high and confronting your fear of heights, I loved it! Like there’s a thing you can do called a “leap of faith” where you just jump off a platform, and you’re hooked up, you’re not going to fall. That free-fall feeling, you do have it for a little while, and I love that. I felt like after that, after conquering that, it was like, “OK, well, what else can I do?” Watching other women who are truly, truly afraid of heights, just like hanging on to these wires and just feeling the fear and going for it anyway and watching them like, “Oh!” That was so exhilarating for me. So, next time because I’m kind of a daredevil, I do want to go into a shark cage. 

GLITTER: Are you a girl’s trip kind of girl, and if so, what would be the ideal vacation for you? 
WENDI: I am not a girl’s trip person. I can’t say that I’ve ever been on girl’s trip. Hmmm, what I would never say no to, going down to Tulum or something. Sure, I mean, certainly, if someone wanted me and a bunch of girls to go to a five-star resort anywhere near the ocean, I would do that. I would give of myself that last mile.  

GLITTER: What’s one thing that helped you through the first months of isolation? Was there one thing that kind of comforted you? 
WENDI: One thing that kind of comforted me was I got to be with my husband a lot and, you know, we kind of make our home a cozy place so that we don’t necessarily want to leave, you know? So at first, and this is back when we thought this was only going to be two weeks, it was kind of nice. Like, “Oh, we can nest, and I can reorganize things and maybe do some painting or whatever, paint a room.” That made me really happy at first, just nesting. “Oh, I’ll go out into the yard, clip some flowers. I’ll cook something, a big sour-dough bread, like everybody else in the world.” Then, yeah, around month two, it was like, “OK, come on, we’re wasting our lives.” But, you know, it did feel good to sit still for a little bit.  

GLITTER: What’s next for you? 
WENDI: What is next? Well, we’re finishing The Goldbergs, finishing up this season. I have an animated series coming out on Hulu called M.O.D.O.K., which is part of the Marvel Universe. It was put together by Patton Oswalt, and I played this bananas scientist that is always at odds with Patton’s character. It was really fun, it’s like stop motion animation, so it’s really weird. I hope people like it because it sure was fun to do. So that’s coming out. I’m on a cartoon called Big City Greens that airs every Saturday on the Disney Channel. I’m supposed to film a couple of movies in the spring, but we don’t know; fingers crossed that everything goes as planned. Then a movie that I did that went to Sundance a couple of years ago is finally getting its UK debut next week, that’s called Blush. You can watch it here on video on demand here in the States, but it’s going to the U.K. finally. So that’s nice, and we’ll see, just waiting on that vaccination. (smiling) So we can solidify some plans. I’m very lucky. I’m very I’m very blessed.  

GLITTER: Well, thank you so much, Wendi. It was great talking to you, and wishing you the best in all your next endeavors. 
WENDI: Thank you. The pleasure was mine. 

Lionsgate’s Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar is now streaming.