Wendi McLendon-Covey is good at making outspoken women funny without forgetting the people beside them. We rate her timing and generosity in an ensemble; the reservation is how often she is asked to be overbearing.
Fi1m perspective
As Rita in Bridesmaids (2011), Wendi McLendon-Covey makes cynicism sound thoroughly ordinary. We laughed at her bluntness because she plays it as a settled way of dealing with people, rather than a special effort to be outrageous. In Paul Feig's comedy about competitive friendship, that gives the ensemble a useful difference of attitude. We rate her most highly in this sort of company, where a forceful character still has to leave room for others.
Her explanation of what The Groundlings taught her is instructive: “It made me learn how to listen and respond accordingly and let other people have their moment.” Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy were fellow performers there, and that shared improvisational background helps explain the ease of the ensemble work. Feig gives the cast of Bridesmaids room to misbehave, though he also lets several scenes run too long. McLendon-Covey's timing is a pleasure; it cannot fix the film's slower romance.
Television had already established her as an improvising comic lead before Bridesmaids brought wider film recognition. Beverly Goldberg in Adam F. Goldberg's The Goldbergs (2013–2023) then gave her a long-running lead as an overprotective mother. With Joyce in the workplace mockumentary St. Denis Medical (2024–), she continues in television comedy. The recurring outspoken women in her work make us wary of typecasting. Being dependable in those roles should not mean being confined to them.
Elemental (2023), directed by Peter Sohn, uses her voice as Gale. The fire-and-water romance is lovely when Ember and Wade are left alone together, but the film keeps cluttering their story with other business. A distinctive voice is useful; it cannot do much about that. McLendon-Covey's presence is not reason enough to choose it. Start with Bridesmaids for the ensemble work, and allow for a few scenes that should have ended sooner.
Biography
Wendi McLendon-Covey is an American actress and comedian. Born on 10 October 1969 in Bellflower, California, she graduated from California State University, Long Beach, and trained with the improvisational comedy group The Groundlings.
She is known for playing Deputy Clementine Johnson in the Reno 911! franchise and Beverly Goldberg in the ABC series The Goldbergs (2013–2023), for which she received two Critics' Choice Television Award nominations. Film roles include Rita in Bridesmaids (2011), Jen in Blended (2014), Olivia in What Men Want (2019), and the voice of Gale in Elemental (2023).
