Melanie Lynskeys Yellowjackets costars defended her from body shaming producer
Melanie Lynskey is currently starring in both Yellowjackets on Showtime and has a supporting role as Leonardo DiCaprio’s wife in Don’t Look Up. Most people response when they see Melanie, no matter what they know her from is, “oh her, I love her!” She’s great in everything. Melanie frequently gets cast as the supportive character to the lead – the sensible best friend, the understanding wife, the sassy sister. I think that’s why I loved her as Rose in Two and A Half Men so much, because she got to play against type. Much of her casting has to do with her girl-next door appearance. In Yellowjackets, she is once again in the role of the supportive friend (only things went sideways, to say the least). One thing that was important to her in the role of Shauna was that she look like an approachable woman. Melanie, who’s admitted to disordered eating in her past, said she wanted to come into the role at her usual size and never have it discussed in any negative way. She also wanted the character to be shown sexual and desirable, like any normal woman would be. And Shauna was shown exactly like that. However, Melanie had a rocky start to filming. She recently told a story about being body shamed by a production member who asked her what she planned to do about her weight after she was cast. But Melanie didn’t have to take it alone, her cast-mates Juliette Lewis, Tawny Cypress and Christina Ricci came to her defense and Melanie was allowed to portray Shauna her own way.
Melanie Lynskey had her Yellowjackets costars on her side when she was allegedly body shamed on set, the actress said.
The 44-year-old Lynskey, who stars on the hit Showtime series, said in an interview with Rolling Stone that a member of the show’s production staff implied that she needed to lose weight.
“They were asking me, ‘What do you plan to do? I’m sure the producers will get you a trainer. They’d love to help you with this,’ ” she said.
After the incident, Lynskey’s costars, Tawny Cypress, Christina Ricci and Juliette Lewis, immediately came to her defense, she said, with Lewis writing a letter to the Yellowjackets producers.
Again, not surprising that person felt they had the right to say something. Production teams in Hollywood having been allowed to put people down based appearance for over a century. The one solace I get is that this SOB didn’t anticipate the Yellowjackets coming for them when they opened their stupid mouth. I’m sure Melanie used the experience in her performance, though. She had a lot of experiences to lend to Shauna’s story. In that same Rolling Stone interview she talked about her promo tour on her very first movie, Heavenly Creatures with Kate Winslet. Apparently, she was very much the Shauna to Kate’s Jackie, with Kate getting designer gowns and Melanie having to find dresses at local shops. Kate was sent a ton of scripts and passed the ones that bored her off to Melanie. And the worst was that halfway through the tour, the cretin Harvey Weinstein sent Melanie home. He’d made the call on his own that “nobody wanted to hear from (her).” No wonder Melanie is so bad@$$, she’s been fighting back against this bs from the start.
As you may know, but we often forget because they are so low key, Melanie is married to Jason Ritter. Her tweets on Yellowjackets in general have been really funny, but when she includes Jason in them, they’re even better. My favorite, however, was this one. I suppose this could be spoiler-y, if you don’t know anything at all about the show, so I guess spoiler?:
He has asked if we can expect a big Debris episode in Season Two
— Melanie Lynskey (@melanielynskey) January 7, 2022
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