Melanie Lynskey might be the nicest actor working in Hollywood. When Total Film catches up with the New Zealand star, her thoughtful and gentle presence feels as soothing as a light breeze on a warm day. Dressed in a pink-and-white jumper, with her hair tied back, she is video-chatting from her daughter’s bedroom in Los Angeles. ‘Can you see the Encanto bedspread?’ she asks, moving out of the way to offer up a better view.
It is this sweet-natured manner that the 46-year-old has deployed to chilling effect over a decades-long career. She has always been drawn to complicated women, who are often grappling with a fierce, unwieldy torrent of emotion under a mild exterior. Lynskey can portray rage and how it shatters the soul so viscerally; it’s the bee sting covered in honey, unleashed when you least expect it.
She brings an emotional intensity to each of her roles, whether it’s as the baby-faced, scowling teen in Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures, who ends up murdering her own mother; or a woman, still hurting after several miscarriages, in Sam Mendes’ romantic movie Away We Go, delivering a melancholy pole dance in front of her husband.
The past few years have been a whirlwind for Lynskey. Before that, she had established herself as a quiet force to be reckoned with in the indie world, in films such as I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, Hello I Must be Going and The Intervention. Lynskey has also been a frequent scene-stealer in bigger productions like Ever After, Shattered Glass, Sweet Home Alabama, The Informant! and Up in the Air. But mainstream recognition had always eluded her until Yellowjackets, Showtime’s gory cannibal drama. An explosive part last year as a resistance leader in HBO’s The Last of Us only cemented her new, white-hot status.
In The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Sky and Peacock’s adaptation of the bestselling novel, Lynskey plays real-life author Heather Morris. The aspiring writer interviews Holocaust survivor Lale Sokolov (Harvey Keitel and Jonah Hauer-King playing the older and younger versions respectively) about his incredible life story. Slowly, he reveals his moving romance with a fellow concentration-camp prisoner, Gita (Anna Próchniak).
Finding fame in her 40s, an age when many other women lament the lack of good roles in TV and film, has taken Lynskey by surprise. ‘I didn’t think this was
