Margaret McPoyle From Always Sunny Is Gorgeous In Real Life

Remember the first time you laid eyes on poor, misunderstood Margaret McPoyle? A recurring character on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia since 2006, McPoyle is distinguished by her compulsive lip-licking, her propensity for pigtails, and her wholly unfortunate unibrow. In case you've blocked her most famous scene from your mind, we'll jog your memory: In the 2007 episode "The Gang Gets Held Hostage," sleaze merchant Dennis Reynolds (portrayed by Glenn Howerton) successfully seduces McPoyle with the world's nastiest neg: "You know, your eyebrow drives me crazy... It's so thick, so dark, and so very connected." 

To this day, we don't know a whole lot about McPoyle. As Uproxx notes, she's a member of an "inbred, incestuous family" and happens to be "deaf-mute." Other than that, there's one morsel we can share with confidence: The actress who plays McPoyle is absolutely gorgeous in real life. (Even the professional oglers at Maxim agree, for what it's worth.)

Meet Thesy Surface, the Chicago-born actress behind the unibrow, the pigtails, the increasingly iconic "Lip Lick." In 2010, she told TheTVJunkieDotNet she "grew up in rainy old London," but her ambition eventually led her to Los Angeles to pursue acting. She once described her time on the long-running FX comedy thus: "Working on Sunny is like taking a hike in Cracktown, but a fun Cracktown" (per Spotlight Media Company). Let's take a look at the beauty beneath this perpetually sweaty, occasionally gun-toting beast.

When Thesy Surface steps into the role of Margaret McPoyle, she makes it seem so effortlessly wretched — but looking that greasy doesn't come easy. According to LAist, Surface "endures a 1 ½ to 2 hour 'uglification' process in order to be transformed" into the slurp-happy, deeply upsetting character. Although her first appearance was meant to be her last, Surface soon received "a call from the casting office" asking about her "availability" the following season. McPoyle became a recurring character, and the makeup process became even more involved. In 2010, Surface enticed TheTVJunkieDotNet with an exclusive scoop: "This year, the unibrow becomes HD... because they couldn't just stick a hairy mustache on my forehead."

Instead, makeup artists reportedly went the extra mile, taking great pains to apply tiny individual hairs to her face, creating a unibrow that far surpassed previous efforts. In many regards, Surface felt McPoyle's newly modernized monobrow didn't "look as bad still as the other one... especially all greased up... I'm like, Margaret McPoyle looks better this season." 

Always Sunny actor, writer, and series co-creator Rob McElhenney may have been displeased with this development, as he once reportedly told Surface: "You know, we're not a pretty show. We're an ugly show." 

In 2012, Thesy Surface sounded certain that portraying Margaret McPoyle would "make a great 'Before They Were Famous' story." In an interview with the Mr. Media podcast, Surface was asked whether McPoyle had opened any doors for her, career-wise: "You know what it's led to?" she mused. "Hype. ... It's, like, buzz. It's better to be talked about than not." Though the role of McPoyle doesn't provide Surface with a single line of dialogue, she still didn't find the character "limiting in any way." Really, she thought she was at an advantage: She claimed viewers became curious, presumably did a bit of Internet sleuthing, and ultimately found themselves surprised that she "look[ed] totally different" in real life.

Interviewer Bob Andelman was curious whether Surface had any concerns about being typecast. "You're a lovely young woman," he noted, "but you're pretty well covered up." She evidently "wasn't worried" in the slightest: "It's weird, everyone asks me that. It's not that I'm not vain, I am vain." But she found herself drawn to left-of-center characters "whether they're evil, whether they're ugly. ... I'm someone who likes extremes in general," she said. 

For Surface, the important thing was that McPoyle stuck with viewers at the end of the day: "Someone once said... it doesn't matter how big a role you are, just be memorable." And you gotta admit: When Margaret McPoyle stares into space and compulsively licks her upper lip, it definitely stays with you.

There is one bit of physical comedy that directors have some very strong opinions about: Margaret McPoyle's iconic "Lip Lick." This traumatizing tic first manifested in Always Sunny's Season Three episode "The Gang Gets Held Hostage," which featured Dennis Reynolds (Glenn Howerton) memorably seducing McPoyle in a dingy bathroom. "I remember being a little like, 'What kind of lick do you want?'" Thesy Surface told Mr. Media in 2012. She eventually tried out "a few versions of the lick" for Fred Savage, the director of the episode. Eventually she struck gold by trotting out what she calls "The Lizard Lick."

Surface implied Savage was a touch obsessive when it came to getting The Lick just right. He allegedly kept advising her: "Keep on just doing that lick!" and "Okay, just do the lick again!" In 2008, Surface was briefly featured in the music video for "Going Back to Philly," a "promo" for the then-upcoming Season Four, which Savage also directed. Surface also told Mr. Media that Savage's direction boiled down to something like this: "Do that lip lick! It's the branding part of it!" and "You ready to make out, Thesy? Ready to make out...?" Hmm. 

Looking back, Surface says the Lip Lick was "one of those things where, it's in the script, but you don't think it's gonna become the famous, you know, The Lip Lick of Margaret McPoyle."

It might not look like much on paper, but actors can wait their whole lives for a role like Margaret McPoyle to come along. Talking to Mr. Media in 2012, Surface offered some words of advice that could prove helpful to all those struggling entertainers looking to get a foot in the door: "You just never know what's going to happen," she said, adding: "You might as well show up to everything." Go to "every audition." Keep every appointment. "Just always show up and be open," Surface says.

Surface knows plenty of actors who landed their first big breakout role in a seemingly random way, scoring projects "they thought they'd never in a million years get," all because they happened to be in the right place at the right time.

She also knows actors who just "didn't feel like meeting with that one person," but decided to attend the powwow anyway. "Suddenly the story of their life changed," she says. The takeaway? With a bit of moxie, determination, and blind luck, you too might be cast as a monobrowed creeper furtively skulking around dive-bar lavatories. You just have to want it enough.