Melanie Lynskey is finally getting her “main character moment” after working for years as a character actress. The star, who recently scored her first Emmy nomination for her role in Yellowjackets, discussed her time in the spotlight, as well as what it’s like not being a size 0 in Hollywood.
Lynskey Calls New Level of Fame ‘A Very New Arena’
Lynskey has appeared in tons of hit movies, including Sweet Home Alabama, Coyote Ugly, and Ever After, but it wasn’t until Showtime’s Yellowjackets that she started truly getting recognized for her talent.
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“I did my first movie when I was 15 and I’m 45 now,” the actress said in an interview with InStyle. “I think I’ve just kind of been under-the-radar, like, it’s a bit nerve-wracking for me to be more public now. I’ve never done so much sustained publicity and interviews, so it feels like a very new arena and I just feel like people are going to get sick of me because if anything, I’ve just been kind of under-the-radar enough to just keep steadily working.”
Her Thoughts On Body Image: ‘It’s Such a Struggle, Always’
Lynskey went on to talk about what it’s like to do love scenes when you don’t match Hollywood’s insane body standards. “It’s such a struggle, always,” she explained. “I feel like I have two voices in my head. One of them is coming from my heart and my soul and what I know is right, and it’s telling me, You’re perfectly fine. And then the other voice is just this little voice that’s always been there that’s like, What are you thinking? Thinking your body’s OK. It’s not OK. You have to change it, like, What are you thinking, doing a love scene? What are you thinking, being one of the leads of a show?”
“It’s just reinforced so much culturally that there’s a different kind of body that is, you know, popular,” she continued. “And so it’s a struggle within myself to just say, I feel beautiful. My husband thinks I’m beautiful. And also we look like the majority of women in the world. We’re healthy, you know? I think there’s this weird shaming of anybody who’s not, like, a size 2, and I’m just over it.”
Lynskey: ‘All Bodies Are Beautiful’
Lynskey also spoke about her dislike of using the phrase “real women” to describe certain body types and her hope that all body shapes will be accepted without comment in the future. “Very thin women are real women,” the actress said. “All women are real women. All bodies are beautiful and I just really would love to get to the point where we can have all different kinds of bodies and it’s just not commented on in the way that it is right now.”
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Fans of Lynskey love her openness about her struggles with body image and how she has learned to accept herself, and are happy she is finally getting the recognition from Hollywood that she deserves!