Photography: Matt Grace
She might be one of Hollywood’s hottest stars, but Kiwi actress Melanie Lynskey swears that beyond the film sets, leading roles and red carpets, she’s really just an ordinary mum. Yes, she’s the Emmy nominated star of hit shows like Yellowjackets and The Last Of Us, her face beams down from billboards and she spends her days working alongside some of the industry’s biggest names.
But at home in Los Angeles, New Plymouth-born Melanie’s more likely to be found volunteering at her daughter’s school, juggling drop-offs and pick-ups with her actor husband Jason Ritter or cleaning up after her two cats.
Glamorous? “Only sometimes!” she laughs, insisting her favourite role is simply being mum to Kahikatea, six.
Cherishing every moment
“I have one child, so I’m really aware I’m only doing this once,” she says.
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“I feel so honoured to get to be her mum – I really do.”
Melanie, 48, has spoken before about her heartbreaking miscarriage and IVF journey, and it’s clear little Kahi, as she’s known, is the absolute light of her life. She immerses herself in her world.
“I do a lot of volunteering,” she smiles.
“I go to assembly, I do pizza Fridays, I work in the library and, this year, I’m co-chair of the art fair, which is a big job! But I love it. “We have such a wonderful school – it’s inclusive, there’s a great group of parents. It’s lovely to be able to see her at school and be part of all that.”
Bringing Pike River to life
Melanie’s speaking to Woman’s Day about Pike River, the heart-wrenching new Kiwi film that tells the real-life story of Anna Osborne and Sonya Rockhouse’s fight for justice after the West Coast mining disaster of 2010.
Melanie plays Anna, while After The Party actress Robyn Malcolm stars as Sonya. Sonya’s son Ben and Anna’s husband Milton were among the 29 coal miners killed by the methane gas explosion.
In the following years, Anna and Sonya successfully campaigned for the government to re-enter the mine, and they continue to lobby for improved health and safety legislation.
A story of courage and friendship
In cinemas this week, the film is a story of deep friendship and extraordinary courage, and Melanie says a huge sense of responsibility permeated every day of filming. It’s clear this was no ordinary project.
She tells, “It felt so important to do the story justice, and in a way that Anna, Sonya and all the families were happy with. But at the end of the day, you just have to focus on the emotional honesty and trust in your gut that you’re going to know what’s right. “I got to know Robyn so well, and Robyn and I got to know Anna and Sonya so well – they became like a North Star for us. We were really guided by them.”
A friendship inked in love
She now counts Robyn, 60, whom she hadn’t met until Pike River, as a lifelong friend – and she has the tattoo to prove it! Melanie lifts her leg up to show off a Licorice Allsorts lolly on her ankle. She and Robyn celebrated the last day of filming with a visit to a tattoo parlour, and while this isn’t Melanie’s first ink, she confesses Robyn is the only person with whom she shares a matching one.
“Fortunately, my husband isn’t a jealous person,” she grins, adding that back home in the US, no one has a clue what a Licorice Allsort is.
“It’s a very Kiwi thing, so I’m always having to explain it. But I love it. It reminds me of Pike and it reminds me of Robyn.”
Aotearoa being a forever home
Melanie might have lived in the US for most of her adult life, but she insists Aotearoa will always be home. Her parents and siblings are all here, she visits often and she does all she can to keep Kahikatea’s connection to her Kiwi roots alive, including bringing her and Matlock actor Jason, 45, to New Zealand for three months while she filmed Pike River.
The chance to give Kahikatea a taste of classic Kiwi life was a dream, she admits, with the family walking to local parks, going on bike rides, and hanging out with old friends and their kids.
A name with meaning
“It was such a special time,” tells Melanie, whose daughter carries a school bag with pictures of kiwi on it and loves spotting kahikatea trees when they travel in Aotearoa.
“Her name Kahikatea is a way of connecting her back to her New Zealand culture. She’s proud of that and to me, it just feels like a very strong but feminine name. I love that.”
While her passion for her old stomping ground may be strong, Melanie’s Kiwi accent has morphed into something of a hybrid after 25 years in the States. She worried about getting it right for her role in Pike River.
Perfecting the Kiwi accent
“My accent is a mess!” she declares.
But she needn’t have worried – the film has already earned huge praise, with one reviewer describing Melanie’s performance as “career-defining”.
The actress says meeting Dame Jacinda Ardern, who has a cameo in the film, was a life highlight. She might count Hollywood stars as her buddies, but encountering the former prime minister left her speechless.
Starstruck moments
Melanie explains, “I’ve met a lot of very exciting people, but if I meet someone that I admire, I get very starstruck – I recently met Marion Cotillard and I was not normal! I was like that with Jacinda. She’s very charismatic, very open and so smart. It just was a joy.”
It’s been 31 years since Melanie’s career began, starring opposite Kate Winslet in Sir Peter Jackson’s film Heavenly Creatures. Since then, she has starred in hits including Two And A Half Men, Castle Rock, Don’t Look Up, and Yellowjackets, earning Emmy and Critics Choice nominations and cementing her status as one of Hollywood’s most respected and relatable leading women.
Hollywood recognition
Melanie has also stood out for her quiet rejection of the sexism and ageism that has long defined the film and TV industry, objecting to the notion that Hollywood stars must look a certain way.
“It’s very distressing to me that we’re being told that the most important thing about us is what we look like and how much we weigh,” she states.
“How about being an interesting person? How about being a kind person? How about doing work that you’re proud of? I really feel like it’s important to fight back against those expectations.”
Being a positive role model
It hasn’t always been easy, but Melanie says it’s important to be a positive role model for her daughter and to show audiences that women over 30 have a lot to offer.
She explains, “There’s just this strange homogenisation of the female image that’s happening more and more now, where people are filtering pictures and getting work done to look exactly the same. “I think people are losing sight of what individuals look like. For an audience, it’s really a nice thing to be able to watch something and see someone who looks like yourself – to go, ‘Oh, that’s a person I recognise. That’s someone who feels familiar to me or looks like me.’”
She recalls a moment recently when she was in a waiting room at a dermatology clinic in LA with her daughter to have a rash looked at, when Kahikatea picked up a brochure on Botox.
“She was like, ‘Mama, what is this? What’s this book about?’ I had to kind of say, ‘Well, it’s about Botox, which some people use to freeze their wrinkles.’ And she was like, ‘But I love your wrinkles!’”
While the US has been home for 25 years, Melanie reveals she and Jason fantasise about buying a house in New Zealand, splitting their time between the two countries. People might think all actors earn millions, but it’s not quite the reality, she insists.
“Hopefully we’ll get there one day, though. That’s the dream.”
Pike River is in cinemas from Thursday.
