The actor: Melanie Lynskey, a New Zealander who made an impressive debut in Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures opposite Kate Winslet, and has gone on to a steady career in Hollywood as a character actress, often playing ordinary-looking women with a frayed edge. Last year was one of Lynskey’s biggest: She played significant parts in the movies Away We Go, The Informant!, and Up In The Air (all now available on DVD and Blu-ray), while continuing her recurring role on the hit sitcom Two And A Half Men.
Up In the Air (2009)—“Julie Bingham”
Melanie Lynskey: I had to audition. I read the script and thought it was so beautiful. I really liked Jason Reitman’s previous movies, but before I walked into the audition, the casting director stopped me and said, “Jason doesn’t ever want to cast foreigners who are doing accents. So if you’re going to talk to him, can you please put on an American accent, so he doesn’t know you’re a foreigner?” I’m just not very good at doing that. I feel like I’m kind of faking something if I’m talking as myself and putting on an accent. So I ended up not saying a word to him the whole audition. [Laughs.] I was too nervous that I’d give it away.
The A.V. Club: Coming from New Zealand, do you have much of an affinity with the American Midwest?
ML: No, to be honest. [Laughs.] It’s something I just know about from television and movies. Now that I’ve spent some time filming in the Midwest, I understand it a little better. Maybe.
AVC: When you’re only in a movie for a handful of scenes, are you focused more on making an impact?
ML: I feel like any actor should always be thinking about how to serve the story. The thing to be cautious of is trying to make too much of your “moment,” or whatever. The story is a lot bigger than you, and you’re there to help it along. The thing to think about is whether what you’re doing is true to the moment and where the story’s going, rather than going, “Here are my scenes. What can I try and do to make the most of them?” But yes, you do have a little more freedom, in a way, because the audience isn’t really paying that close attention to you. It’s not like when you’re a leading actor and you’re worried about how to hold their attention.
The Informant! (2009)—“Ginger Whitacre”
ML: Steven [Soderbergh] isn’t the kind of director where you talk about everything beforehand. He didn’t go into whether my character knew her husband was lying or anything, so I had to make the decision, because I wasn’t able to talk to the real Ginger. I decided that she didn’t know, that she was the kind of woman who would feel like her job is to take care of the house and her husband and be at home and not suspect anything. Obviously she’s given a lot of conflicting information, and she’s very confused about what’s happening, but I don’t think she ever knows what’s really going on. I had to make that decision for myself, because Steven was very clear about the fact that you’re playing a character in a movie, not doing an impersonation of somebody. You’re telling the actual story, but you don’t have to worry that much about what really happened. But then when I met the woman at the première, she told me that I got it right. She didn’t know what was going on.