A few years ago, Melanie Lynskey was told by a psychic that her career was about to hit the big-time. It was in the early days of the pandemic, during a period when Melanie was feeling particularly “hopeless”, as she put it. The film and television industry was on its knees, and Melanie and her husband Jason Ritter were still recovering from a pregnancy loss. Good news was in short supply.
But a friend of a friend had put Melanie in touch with Fatima, a New Orleans-based psychic, who came through with a big, bold message: “You’re about to enter into a time in your career that you didn’t think was going to happen because it didn’t happen when you were 25.”
In typical self-deprecating fashion, the New Plymouth-born actress thought that maybe Fatima was having an off day. But she was very specific, telling Melanie, “You’ve already done something and it’s going to come back.”
The only thing that fit the bill was a pilot episode she had filmed for a show. She hadn’t heard a single thing about the series in the seven months since – whether the pilot was good, whether she was good in it or whether it was going to go anywhere.
But Fatima was bang on the money. That pilot episode was for a show called Yellowjackets, a twisty, grisly, darkly funny drama series about a group of 40-something women who are still reckoning with surviving a plane crash as teenagers.
It became a worldwide hit and saw Melanie become the kind of overnight success that rarely happens to a woman in her forties. Multiple award nominations, one Critics’ Choice win and several high-profile acting jobs later, she has hit the A-list after decades of being Hollywood’s best-kept secret.
And now she’s coming full circle as she plays a real-life Kiwi in her latest role, The Tattooist of Auschwitz, almost three decades after she first played a New Zealander.
A heavenly creature
Growing up in Taranaki, Melanie was the eldest of five children and a painfully shy child. When she first starred in a school play at the age of six, it brought her a new-found confidence and a love of acting that has sustained her through one of the hardest industries to crack.
The hobby quickly became a passion – she joined the local church just to take part in the plays – and when she was 16, an open audition for Sir Peter Jackson’s film Heavenly Creaturessaw her cast opposite a young Kate Winslet, telling the real-life story of two teenage girls who decide to kill one of their mothers.
