Melanie goes to Hollywood

Creme, December 2000

Melanie Lynsky's [sic] acting career began as a young teenager with humble beginnings. In the sleepy seaside town of New Plymouth she acted, with no formal training, in local theatre groups. Now at 23, Melanie is based in LA acting alongside big names in equally big budget Hollywood films, such as the new chick flick "Coyote Ugly". Bridget Hope talks to the softly-spoken Melanie (or Mel to her friends) about her road to success in the cut-throat Hollywood film industry.

It's at the end of a long day for Melanie. She is currently in Seattle working on a Stephen King mini series that will keep her there until Christmas and whilst she is currently working in Seattle, auditions for movie roles sees her commuting back and forth to LA where she has her own apartment. Down the end of the phone line you can barely hear Melanie because of her quiet mouse-like voice. She speaks slowly and with such sincerity that it seems hard to believe that this sweet young woman ever made the jump overseas in the first place.

"All I ever wanted was to be an actress." she says, "But I always imagined my career would be living in Wellington and doing theatre. At the time that seemed like a big career to me."

Melanie's first professional acting role came when she was just 15 years old in the form of the Peter Jackson film "Heavenly Creatures", a New Zealand film set in Christchurch about a wayward teenager whom, with the help of another girl (played by Kate Winslet) brutally kills her mother. Based on a true story, the film was set in Christchurch where the actual murder occurred. Melanie received a New Zealand Film and Television Award for Best Actress for her performance, but at the time had no idea of just how much the film would launch her acting career. She remembers : "I remember Kate [Winslet] would talk during filming about how good it would be for our careers and I was like...career ? What career ?" laughs Melanie.

"Kate had already been acting professionally since she was a toddler but I was just beginning. I knew that it would be a good film because the script was so amazing but it was such a shock when it came out and so many people saw it."

Once the media buzz had died down from "Heavenly Creatures", Melanie went back to New Plymouth and returned to normal teenage life, attending high school at New Plymouth Girls High. She then went on to university studying sporadically for eighteen months. It was at this point that Melanie started getting itchy feet.

"It had never occurred to me to go to LA or London or any of those places" says Mel, "But I eventually got agents overseas and I was a bit depressed being at home (New Plymouth). Then this movie came out of the blue. It was this little independent movie called "Foreign Correspondents" and I went to LA to do that. Whilst I was there I auditioned for "Ever After" and have just been in the US ever since."

In the 1998 big budget Hollywood flick "Ever After", Melanie played the supporting role of one of the two "ugly" sisters. She worked alongside Drew Barrymore who played Cinderella and Angelica Huston who was cast as the evil stepmother. For Melanie it was a monumental experience working with such big names.

"Drew is SO amazing." gushes Melanie.

Melanie has slowly been working away on films all over the world since then, although most of her work keeps her in LA. Asked if there is anything about the Hollywood scene that drives her up the wall, she replies, "There are hundreds of things. The biggest would be the pressure of it all. No matter how much time you spend trying to make yourself feel good, it's hard to walk into a room of skinny little things for an audition who spend their whole lives starving themselves. It's hard not to think that you should have to look like that too."

However over the course of time, Melanie's distinctive look has meant that she has been able to carve out a niche for herself in the industry.

"If you work it out properly then you can get to an interesting place in your career where you are never typecast and are never too famous, so you can just keep working." she says.

"I managed to do this by not conforming to any ideals. Like in this current mini series, I'm playing the pretty girl. A couple of years ago they would have never seen me [to audition] for this part."

And in the land of the stars, Melanie's competition for acting roles is often pretty stiff.

"The last role that I came second for was this massive Adam Sandler movie that took them three weeks to decide. In the end Patricia Arquette got the role. Another movie Cameron Diaz got. It was a Martin Scorsese film with Leonardo DiCaprio. There's just nothing you can do about that."

Although Melanie is now used to auditioning and working on big budget Hollywood films, she prefers the smaller independent films.

"I prefer the little films because people are there for the right reasons." Melanie says. "They are there because they love the project as opposed to making money. In New Zealand people are just different anyway. In America there are always stars. There are star actors, star directors, star producers. People do tend to get carried away sometimes."

Snakeskin, directed by Jillian Ashkurst, saw Melanie spend the first part of this year in New Zealand. Luckily for Melanie, even though she has been living overseas for over fours years now, New Zealand is still very much home to her. She explains, "People have this idea that once you leave to go overseas you never want to go back, but I can't wait to come back. I'm only in LA because I have to be. I'm desperate for roles in New Zealand" she pines. Her wish was granted earlier this year when she returned to New Zealand to play the lead in Snakeskin, her favourite acting role to date.

"It's probably the one film that I have had the most freedom with." she says. "The character was very similar to my own and it made it fun to do. It's a movie about a girl called Alice who's just crazy and wild. She goes out on the road with her best friend Johnny whose [sic] played by Adino Gordon [sic again this time cuz his real name is Dean O'Gorman - OOPS]. They pick up this American hitchhiker called Steph and realise that where they come from is just as mixed up and dark and exciting as America is," she tells us.

The producers of "Snakeskin" are planning to screen the film at a myriad of international film festivals in the bid to get an American distributor for world wide audiences.

Melanie's most recent film to hit the cinemas, "Coyote Ugly" is a flashy chick flick about a girl named Violet who travels to New York in pursuit of a career in song writing. Melanie plays the role of Violet's best friend from New Jersey, Gloria. Although the film has only recently been launched in New Zealand, Melanie tells us it was filmed this time last year.

"It took forever to finish though." she says. "The other girls were continually being asked to come back for reshoots. Jerry Bruckheimer (producer) is a total perfectionist and would test scenes out on audiences. And if his audiences wanted to see more of the bar then he would start up production and reshoot it all over again."

Asked what it was like for her having to work with a whole bunch of supermodels, she replies, "It was intimidating but I didn't have many scenes with all those girls. I was with Piper the whole time and I adore her. But Adam Garcia..." she sighs.

"Oh my God... He's so spunky. I can't believe how sexy that man is. It was so much fun to hang out with him and Piper. I didn't spend a lot of time with the other girls but they were all really nice and appeared to be eating all the time too. They would be eating great big steaks." she laughs.

In preparation for her supporting role in "Coyote Ugly", Melanie had to learn a coarse New Jersey accent.

"Initially they wouldn't see me for the part because they didn't believe that I could do the accent" she says.

But a headstrong Melanie was determined to prove herself going to extra lenghts to secure the role.

"I got a dialect coach and a whole lot of videos out like "Married to the Mob" and then did an audition on videotape, sent it to them and they changed their minds" she says triumphantly.

Since then Melanie has worked in a number of projects, making 2000 a busy working year for the budding young actress. And although she is a seasoned movie-premiere and Hollywood party-goer, the advice she offers for teens wanting to get into acting is as humble and sincere as the girl herself.

"Believe that it's possible." she encourages. "New Zealander's tend to be a bit down on themselves. You just need to look at some of the rubbish that comes out of America like films and crappy bands, and see there's a high percentage of good stuff coming out of New Zealand. You just have to believe that you can take it overseas and be successful. That was the one thing that initially stopped me. I just used to be afraid."

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