Melanie Lynskey On Hello I Must Be Going, Heavenly Creatures Training, And Songs For Getting Into Character

What was your hometown like?
I grew up in a town called New Plymouth, which is on the west coast of the North Island. They filmed The Last Samurai there – that’s its claim to fame. It’s really beautiful, and it’s quite remote. But I lived in Wellington for a while, and I lived in Christchurch for a while. I’ve been away for so long now that it’s kind of a funny idea to go back full time, but if I’m ever rich I’d like to buy a little place there.

How would you describe your decision making process over the years, in terms of the roles and projects you chose?
Very early on I was a little bit obsessed with doing something different every time, like playing characters that were different from the last one. And I made a couple of choices that now I would not make. [Laughs] But I might have played a similar character in a movie that was a thousand times better. Then I went through a period where I wasn’t auditioning; I would have something like eight auditions a year. It was a very dark time.

Why do you think that is?
For a while I had an amazing agent but she left to have a baby, and they kind of shuffled me off to different people that didn’t really get me. I think I just got put on a list of girls who play best friends, or something like that. I actually tried to not do it too often. At that point in time when I sort of felt adrift, I just tried to make choices that were not horrible. I was just like, I guess it’s not offensive. And that’s when I did Two and a Half Men. It was pilot season and I did a little guest star thing on that show, and then they asked me to be a regular. I was like, nothing else is going on…

How do you feel about that show, in retrospect?
I had a really wonderful time, for a lot of reasons. That character is really weird, so that was really fun. There were times when I’d get a little frustrated at playing the same thing over and over, but people were so invested in the show and the relationship between my character and Charlie’s character. Every time I’d go back to do an episode and the studio audience would be so excited…

That’s right, you had a studio audience! What was that environment like to act in?
It’s like a whole other experience, it’s so different – I was doing indie films because I didn’t have a contract for the last seven years of that show.

Really?
I just got out of my contract as soon as I was able to. Before the third season when everybody started to renegotiate to make more money, I asked if I could leave because I became very afraid of being typecast. There were some episodes where I’d just show up and say one wacky thing and I was like, “I’m going to kill myself.” I talked to Chuck Lorre and said, “I can’t keep doing it,” and he said, “Please…” But he was really great. He and the studio let me out of my contract and they created a thing where I would come back as a recurring character when I was available. So it was the greatest deal of all time, it really worked out.

Sometimes I would be available for like 5 episodes in a row and sometimes I couldn’t do one for 8 months. Three years after I got out of my contract I did the other show. But there was a lot about it that was fun. And as soon as I was able to do other stuff as well, it became so much more fun.

You felt more creatively stimulated?
Yeah. And I was just so afraid of doing one thing for the rest of my life. The show was so successful and I could see a crossroads: It was like, this way you’ll be a millionaire and one of the people on this show, and this way you’re not going to make a lot of money but you’re going to be able to build something that’s a little more interesting. If I had stayed on the show, for sure – I’d have my house in New Zealand and I would be doing great. But it was the first show I ever did so I wasn’t making a lot of money, and I left right at the time when everybody was negotiating to make more. [Laughs] My agents at the time were like, “Oh my god, what is wrong with you?” I was like, “But my integrity and my future and my career!”

If you had to do it over again, would you do it the same way?
Yes. I definitely would. And it totally worked out, because after I changed my contract there had to be a reason to bring me back. They’d have to check in advance if I was free, so they wouldn’t just bring me back to do one line. The character became a lot more interesting because of that.

Hello premiered at Sundance, and you took it to Seattle Film Festival, and now it’s finally coming out in theaters.
It’s exciting! I was so nervous that nobody was going to buy it and then it was bought by such a great company, Oscilloscope. I love them, and it feels like the best case scenario for us. But I’m just nervous now. I just want it to all be over. I want it to be on DVD – not as quickly as possible, I want it to be in theaters for a while! But I’m so anxious about it.

Does that happen every time you have a movie open?
This is the worst because I’m in so much of it. At Sundance, when I saw that a particular person had reviewed it, I would be so afraid!

Do you read reviews?
Yes. I read every single review, because I love film criticism and I’m interested. Some of them I can read and go, eh, I don’t really care about you, I don’t think you’re that great. But there are some people where I’m like, I will jump off a building if you don’t like it.

Who’s your favorite film critic?
I have so many people that I love. I really love Wesley Morris, he’s always so great. Manohla Dargis, obviously. Mary Pols, I agree with. And there are websites that I love, like Nick’s Flick Picks. He writes such beautiful stuff about movies. I really like Glenn Kenny. [Laughs]

Have you ever thought about writing yourself?
I used to write stories and poetry, but for some reason I have it in my head that if I’m going to write, I have to write a script.

It’s LA! Everybody does.
I know, isn’t it crazy? Every actor is writing. My best friend Clea [Duvall] has written a couple of scripts, and she’s smart and brilliant and funny and great, but when she was like, “Do you want to read my script?” I thought “Oh no, what if I don’t like it?” But then it was amazing! She’s really good. We’re trying to make a couple of movies together. She’s a really great writer. She’s my best friend.

You did a movie together.
Yes, years ago – But I’m A Cheerleader.

Is that where you first met?
We went to a KISS concert together that Natasha Lyonne and I had to go to because we were in the KISS movie, Detroit Rock City. We had to go to this KISS concert as part of [the movie] but it was really fun. I met Clea at this KISS concert and we had this crazy night where we were in this limo and stayed up til 8 o’clock in the morning. And then we did the movie together.

With Hello I Must Be Going coming out of Sundance as a real showcase for you, do you feel like things have gotten any easier in terms of finding those roles and projects that interest you?
I don’t know. It’s hard to feel that yet. I have felt for the last few years things getting a little easier in the world that I’m interested in working in, which is independent films, the kind with tiny budgets.

How did the David Wain film, They Came Together, come about?
Kathryn Hahn had to drop out and they asked me to do it. So thank you, Kathryn Hahn! She did Wanderlust with him and was so amazing in it. I love Kathryn Hahn. I think she and I are doing a movie together in October. It’s a beautiful, beautiful script about a couple getting divorced – it’s called Goodbye to All That, and it’s written by the guy who wrote Junebug. I cried my eyes out when I got this part. It was like a gift from the heavens. I keep touching wood because I’m so afraid [of jinxing it].

What is your character like?
She goes running instead of talking about things. She’s quite uptight, she’s not very emotional. It’s interesting. She’s a little bit tough, just pushing stuff down. It’s about the end of a marriage, and Paul Schneider and I are playing the couple who are breaking up. He’s a friend of mine, so I’m excited – it takes out all the “Nice to meet you” stuff. I’m spinning a lot so I can try to look like an athlete. I need to drink a little bit less beer, that’ll be my next step. [Laughs]

Speaking of which, it was so great that Amy in Hello I Must Be Going looked like a real woman.
Thank you. A lot of men didn’t appreciate that. A couple of male critics were like, “Why on earth would he be interested in that frumpy, chubby woman?” It’s like, maybe they had an emotional connection. Maybe he saw something that wasn’t on the surface.

Maybe women look like that in real life.
Maybe you’re an asshole. [Laughs] Maybe I don’t care what you think! It’s just exhausting. But that was also really important to me. I did not work out, I didn’t even do my own usual keeping-my-mind-straight routine. I wanted to feel discombobulated and I wanted to feel a little bit gross, and I wanted to look like I’d been sitting around the house eating corn chips for three months. I really hate that when you see somebody who’s supposed to be depressed and eating and they look like they just came from the gym.

Totally. That’s why I appreciate Amy’s terrible depression outfit.
[Laughs] It’s such an awful outfit!

It’s such an honest depiction. Another of your recent characters reflected this sort of sad reality of womanhood and adulthood, in Away We Go. There have been entire articles about the Pole Dance of Grief.
Really? That’s amazing. God, we shot that scene for 18 hours. We had long days on that movie and would just shoot one scene a day, pretty much. It was difficult – even in everybody else’s coverage they had to be watching me do the dance so that their eye line was right. I had to be doing the dance even when I wasn’t on camera. I was so tired, and so stinky! I probably danced for like 8 hours. I always have a theme song I listen to on a movie, a song that ends up becoming the song I listen to for the whole shoot for some reason, and on that movie it was that Band of Horses song “No One’s Gonna Love You.” “No one’s gonna love you more than I do” are the lyrics. It’s about a breakup. It’s intense. But just shooting that scene it became my number 1 listened to song on my iPod.

What was your song while filming Hello I Must Be Going?
I had two theme songs, because I was depressed and I was also in sexual ecstasy. My depressed song was “Let Down” by Radiohead, and then my song when I had scenes with Chris was “Running Up That Hill,” by Kate Bush. It’s very sexy.

There’s something nice and dangerous about that song.
On Win Win my theme song was “Gouge Away” by The Pixies. [Laughs] That surprised me. I spend a couple of weeks before I work making a playlist of songs that feel like they touch upon something to do with the character in some way, and while you’re working you find yourself playing one, something just clicks. On The Informant I listened to songs from movies from the ‘80s. Like, I listened to “Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong” a lot! That was kind of my song.

Hello I Must Be Going is in limited release.

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