Melanie Lynskey Is “Thrilled” To Be Subverting Expectations
Because the most unrealistic part of 'The Last Of Us' Is Melanie Lynskey's body, apparently.
Kiwi actor Melanie Lynskey has graced us with a tweet thread that reminds us why she’s one of the most interesting actors working today.
Lynskey, who made her Last Of Us debut this week as the leader of a group of revolutionaries, was responding to some unsolicited feedback about her casting from actor Adrianne Curry. “Her body says life of luxury, not post-apocalyptic warlord,” Curry wrote in response to a glamorous photo of Lynskey that had nothing to do with the show. “Where is Linda Hamilton when you need her?”
Alas, we have no idea who Linda Hamilton is, but we do know that Melanie Lynskey was having none of this. ‘Firstly — this is a photo from my cover shoot for InStyle magazine, not a still from HBO’s The Last Of Us,” she wrote “And I’m playing a person who meticulously planned & executed an overthrow of [the fictional military agency] FEDRA. I am supposed to be SMART, ma’am. I don’t need to be muscly. That’s what henchmen are for.”
She added that she wanted to be involved in the post-apocalyptic show because she was interested in a vision of the future in which “people start listening to the person with the best ideas.”
“Not the coolest or the toughest person,” she wrote. “The organiser. The person who knows where everything is. The person who is doing the planning. The person who can multitask. The one who’s decisive.”
“I was excited at the idea of playing a woman who had, in a desperate and tragic time, jumped into a role she had never planned on having and nobody else had planned on her having, and then she actually got shit done.”
She added that the fact she subverts some people’s expectations as to what the leader of a group of revolutionaries can look like has been pretty great. “I understand that some people are mad that I’m not the typical casting for this role. That’s thrilling to me.”
Have a read of the full Twitter thread here.