"It would have been easier if some agents were interested"- When Melanie Lynskey opened up about difficulties post Heavenly Creatures

Decades after Melanie Lynskey made her debut with Peter Jackson's acclaimed Heavenly Creatures, the actress is now slowly getting the kind of recognition she deserved long ago. Currently, Lynskey is leading Showtime's hit drama, Yellowjackets, which is rapidly becoming one of the most exciting shows currently on air.

It is perhaps a bit sad for the actress and her fans to look back to the time she got her break with Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures, which served as the debut for both Lynskey and Kate Winslet. However, their trajectories after this movie were vastly different. Kate Winslet, of course, went on to become one of the most popular stars of the time, while Melanie Lynskey slipped to the periphery of Hollywood.

Though she did some great roles and worked in good movies and shows, her name was never as prominent as her debutant co-star, whom she still admires and adores. In a 2022 interview with The Guardian, Melanie Lynskey recalled the tough time she faced after Heavenly Creatures and how she always missed out on leading roles in big productions, unlike Kate Winslet. She told The Guardian:

"It was a little hard to have absolutely nothing happen for me. It would have been easier if some agents were interested, but there was nothing. It was hard to not feel like I had failed in some way...how to be OK with the good things that had happened and not hope for more. That was the beginning of me lowering my expectations."

She also said in this interview about how she was often offered the role of the "fat character," something that was very prevalent in the 1990s.

"There was so much that was just straight-up misogynistic"- Melanie Lynskey on the kind of roles that were offered to her at the time

Of course, times have changed now, but in the 1990s, when Melanie Lynskey broke out with Heavenly Creatures, there were strict rules about how a leading lady should look like. This approach affected Lynskey's career negatively, and she often ended up getting offered roles where she had to compromise a lot.

Speaking about this, Lynskey told The Guardian:

"I felt like so much of the stuff I was reading would have required me to really compromise myself in some way,...There was so much that was just straight-up misogynistic, sexist, disappointing."

She revealed that this made her unhappy most of the time. She also revealed how she was often offered roles where she had to play the best friend of the character and other similar roles. She added:

"I’d get another script to be like, ‘the fat character just sitting in the corner eating a chocolate bar, while the pretty girls are all at the dance’ or whatever. I was like, ‘No’. It’s so irresponsible that there are scripts like this at all."

Thankfully, the industry has changed for the better now, and Melanie Lynskey is also appearing in more prominent projects, often as the lead.

Her works in recent years include I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore (2017), Castle Rock (2018), and Griffin in Summer (2024), among others. Of course, Yellowjackets is also releasing its third season right now.

She is also soon set to appear in Pike River.

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