Melanie Lynskey recalls body shaming on the set of ‘Coyote Ugly’
By Scottie Andrew, CNN
“Yellowjackets” star Melanie Lynskey hasn’t shied away from calling out Hollywood for the body shaming she experienced on film sets, even years after her film debut.
In an interview this week with the Hollywood Reporter, Lynskey recounted a negative experience she’d had on the set of the 2000 film “Coyote Ugly.” She said that production staff scrutinized her physical appearance, as well as the physique of her co-stars, including lead Piper Perabo.
“It was ridiculous,” Lynskey said. “I was already starving myself and as thin as I could possibly be for this body, and I was still a (size) four. That was already people putting a lot of Spanx on me in wardrobe fittings and being very disappointed when they saw me, the costume designer being like, ‘Nobody told me there would be girls like you.'”
Throughout filming, she was subjected to “really intense feedback about (her) physicality, (her) body,” said Lynskey, who was interviewed along with her “Yellowjackets” castmates, including ’90s child star Christina Ricci.
Both women said that they’d been typecast as “character actors” and denounced use of the word “quirky” to describe themselves. Lynskey recalled when a script changed a description of her character from “beautiful” to “cute and quirky.”
“I never liked that word,” she said.
Earlier this year, Lynskey opened up about the scrutiny of her appearance that began after her first film, Peter Jackson’s acclaimed “Heavenly Creatures.” While her co-star Kate Winslet went on to play several ingenue roles, Lysnkey said she didn’t experience the same glut of offers.
“I kept getting reminded I was not the things you needed to be,” she told Vulture in May. “Thin, confident, pretty. Mostly thin.”
After being criticized for her looks during her early years in Hollywood, Lynskey told the Hollywood Reporter she feels “very protective” of her young “Yellowjackets” co-stars who play younger versions of the four main characters. Luckily, she and her co-stars said, the younger cast members are confident enough to stand up for themselves.
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