Finally free from over a decade of holding deals, she tells THR about her next move, her hope for her own "New Girl" and turning the ABC competition down every season.
For the entire 21st century, Jenny McCarthy found herself in production deals that never went anywhere.
Scripted holding deals only led to pilots that were never picked up, and a plan for a talk show with Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studios finally fizzled in 2011, leaving the 39-year-old television personality free to fully explore her opportunities for the first time since her days on MTV.
McCarthy recently spoke with The Hollywood Reporter, and in addition to talking about her experiences with Ryan Seacrest and Dick Clark on New Year's Rockin' Eve, she laid out part of her plan for the coming year.
"Next year you will see something, I can't say what, but it is already signed, sealed, delivered," McCarthy said, promising something on the talk show front -- though she wouldn't clarify if it was daytime or late night. "I can't. I'm sworn to secrecy."
What she can talk about is her desire to act again. Last headlining her own series in 1998, she's since had recurring roles on series such as One on One, Hope & Faith and Two and a Half Men but recently took meetings in hopes of finding a show that might stick.
"I'd been in a holding deal for the last 12 years of my career," McCarthy told THR, "from network to network to network, doing pilots that just didn't make it. So this [past] year I had just met with all of the presidents of the studios, and I said if there's some great New Girl type script, send it my way. So that could very well happen also."
And McCarthy loves the New Girl. She also thinks Whitney Cummings might be the "female Larry David."
"She's got that gift," she says of Cummings. "I feel like the show will morph into something even better as time goes on, but they have the right idea behind it, which is her take on things."
One thing she actually seems closed off to is reality television. When asked about the chances of ever seeing her on Dancing With the Stars, McCarthy seemed amused but firm.
"They ask me every year, and I just can't do it," she says. "I tell them why: You guys keep saying every year you're going to get A-List people and then it's the girl that was with George Clooney... They better talk the walk or walk the talk -- whatever that saying is."
McCarthy credits much of her career confidence to her successful career as an author that's seemed to steer much of her recent career and maybe even distracted her from the medium that made her famous.
"I want to be able to do what I'm doing for the rest of my life," she told THR. "And some smart people in LA had said to me, 'If you want the power, you have to start writing things, because you create anything you want. You don't have to wait for anybody.' That I put into writing books, and it's been incredible for me. I've been really blessed. Now I feel like it's time to do more... It's time to be back on TV."
