melanie lynskey
With roles in cult hit Yellowjackets and TV show of the year The Last Of Us, actor Melanie Lynskey is finally getting her flowers after 30 years in the industry
words: helen bownass
photography: Art Streiber
“I hate small talk.” In those four simple words Melanie Lynskey has reflecteda conversation frequently heard in the office and shown me – not that she needs to prove anything – why she’s a force to be reckoned with. “Oversharing is my favourite,” she adds. Indeed, within 15 minutes of our interview, we’ve covered: female rage, the difficulty with finding a great therapist and sexual desire; it’s a wrench having to say goodbye when my time with her is up. The New Zealand actor – she still has the accent – made her way into the industry at just 15 when she starred in alongside Kate Winslet. But despite a diverse body of work that ranges from popular sitcom to indie films including , it’s over the last 18 months that Lynskey has been fully visible, and we’ve been, alongside Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, as Kathleen, the leader of a revolutionary movement. Fun fact: her husband, actor Jason Ritter, also made a cameo in the series as a ‘clicker’ (a human infected by a parasitic fungus). And now Lynskey is back in series two of brilliant comedy-drama-thriller , on Paramount+, alongside Juliette Lewis, Tawny Cypress and Christina Ricci. “It’s nice to be in things people want to talk about,” she says understatedly of the role that won her a Critics’ Choice Award in 2022. The show follows a high school girl’s football team in the 90s who have to survive in the Canadian wilds after their plane crashes on the way to a competition. Lynskey plays Shauna, who is simmering with resentment, grief, guilt and (not really) dealing with the effects of (spoiler alert) murdering her lover Adam in series one. The show moves between the horrific nightmare the girls endure – I’m currently haunted by the terrifyingly literal line: “Tai, you ate her face” – and the present day, where we witness the insidious trauma that weighs on the shoulders of the survivors. It’s clear that Lynskey is in her leading lady era, and it’s thrilling to watch.
