Golden Globe nominee Melissa McCarthy is an amazing comedic actress, but displays her wonderful dramatic talent in the upcoming movie Can You Ever Forgive Me? based on the true story of Lee Israel, a celebrity biography writer who sold forged letters from dead literary and Hollywood stars. We asked her if music helps or inspires her acting.

“A lot!” she replied right away. “There are certain songs for certain scenes that really are the key, or the way I can sink into something. I’ll listen to it quite a bit leading up to it and then try not to overuse it, because I want to keep it for the day we’re shooting. Music to me is just where your mind can just wander. It can break your heart, it can make you feel so unreasonably confident. I have a crazy nonsense variety of music. I’ll listen to Kendrick Lamar, and then Edie Brickell, and then The Cure, and then we listen to a lot of jazz clarinet. There you go, there’s the insight into our exciting life. We listen to a lot of jazz, we’re starting to listen to classical, but then I’ll go to the 80s, it’s so keyed in to the mood and sometimes I just want to be thrown off. Music is so emotionally powerful. I think we take really great music for granted, that it’s so hard to be technically good and evoke emotion. It’s a magic trick.”