Melanie Lynskey: From Heavenly Creatures to Hollywood...

As a high schooler, Melanie Lynskey came to international attention with her first screen role, playing Pauline Parker in Peter Jackson’s Oscar-nominated Heavenly Creatures. Since then, the New Plymouth-born, Los Angeles-based actor has worked with many major Hollywood names, playing Drew Barrymore’s stepsister in Ever After, Matt Damon’s wife in The Informant, and George Clooney’s sister in Up in the Air. She also had a scene-stealing guest role on Emmy Award-winning sitcom Two and a Half Men. Lynskey has returned to New Zealand to star in feature films Snakeskin and Show of Hands.

In this ScreenTalk, Lynskey talks about:

• Being bitten by the acting bug at the age of six
• Missing the school assembly at which the Heavenly Creatures audition was announced
• Working with actor-director Miranda Harcourt to prepare for her second Heavenly Creatures audition
• The responsibility of playing a real-life murderer on screen
• How her off-screen friendship with Kate Winslet mirrored their on-screen relationship
• Why Snakeskin was her greatest acting experience to date
• The secret behind how Craig Hall would prepare for his scenes in Show of Hands
• Why her experience on her younger sister’s short film A Kiwi Legend was better than most of her Hollywood acting jobs
• Why she turned down the chance to be "a millionaire" on Two and a Half Men
• What sets A-list actors apart from their acting peers

This video was first uploaded on 23 June 2014, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview and Editing – Gemma Gracewood. Camera – Brett Stanley