Melanie Lynskey Quotes

I was friends with Brittany Murphy, and the way she viewed herself was always really heartbreaking to me — the things she felt she had to change to be a successful actor. She was perfect just as she was, but people were trying to cast her as, like, 'the fat one,' because when she was a very young teenager, her cheeks were a little bit round. People tell you that you're a particular thing, and it's very hard to fight back against.

When I read a script for the first time, I have to have something instinctive happen where I feel like that character is there somewhere. I have to hear a person, I have to feel them inside me in a way.

I started calling myself a character actor in interviews when I was really young because I think it was reclaiming the term or something. I think I just was like, "That's what I am."

I had a very old-school agent who was like, 'TV? That's for has-beens!'

People I hadn't heard from in years were getting in touch with me. I started to do some interviews, and then what I was saying in the interviews, people were paying attention to. It was a really hard, odd place to be for me. I was like, 'Oh, gosh, I've got to start watching myself, because I have no filter.'

It's very challenging to put yourself out there and be like, 'You know what, this is what I look like. I am having thyroid issues and I gained 20 lbs. and I still have to be naked on television.'

I said to [my] agency, I have a real problem being a size six — which is what I was at the time — and playing a chubby friend. I hate that these roles exist. I think it's damaging. It's weird for little girls to watch this movie and be like, 'Oh, she's supposed to be the fat one.'

I'm someone who cares very deeply about critics and what critics think. So I'm on Rotten Tomatoes, reading every single review. Like, I care, you know, I respect these people.

I want to be like Julianne Moore and get to do things that scare me — and keep on doing them until I'm very old.

Honestly, doing three or four episodes a year [of Two and a Half Men] enabled me to pay my mortgage and do independent films.

I always wanted to be an actor, but I had this whole plan to go to a good drama school and do it that way. I wasn't trying to get into movies; someone came to my high school and auditioned some girls, so it was a complete accident.

When I first came [to America], I watched a lot of movies. I couldn't afford a dialect coach. And so I just watched everything I could. I tried to learn a lot of different accents. And I'm an introvert, I'm an observer.

It's good in New Zealand to be humble; it's good to be a quieter person. And then you get to this place where everyone wants you to be brash and confident, and I just was like, 'I don't know how to do that!'

I knew I had to get out and start building up something else.

I am quite shy sometimes. I do have some social anxiety. I am soft-spoken. But I'm quite ferocious. I think to be labeled as someone who is a pushover has been the hardest thing to get out of in terms of my personal and professional life.