Melanie Lynskey’s acting career took off at age 17, when she landed the role of Pauline Parker in Peter Jackson’s 1994 film Heavenly Creatures. Since then, she's given countless memorable performances across both TV and film. Lynskey showcased her comedic chops as a series regular on the long-running sitcom Two and a Half Men. On the film side, she’s a mainstay in comfort-classics like Sweet Home Alabama, Coyote Ugly, and Up in the Air. Plus, she routinely garners widespread acclaim for performances in indie dramas that include Hello, I Must Be Going and I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore. Most recently, Lynskey earned two Primetime Emmy nominations for her gripping portrayal of Shauna Sadecki on the hit Showtime series Yellowjackets. The third season finale aired in April, 2025.
More: Melanie Lynskey delights in working with women in their 40s (The Treatment, 2025)
More: ‘Yellowjackets’ creators on making the show and landing a second season (The Business, 2022)
For her Treat, Lynskey expresses a profound admiration for British director Mike Leigh’s style of filmmaking. Seeing his film Naked as a teenager made quite the impression on Lynskey. She shares how she’s particularly inspired by Leigh’s unique casting approach, recalling a moment when actress Katrin Cartlidge auditioned for Naked and was simply encouraged to be in the moment as her character. Lynskey appreciates the freedom Leigh offers to his actors, and she admires his collaborative and improvisational process.
This segment has been edited and condensed for clarity.
I would like to talk about the films of Mike Leigh, who as a filmmaker, I just absolutely adore.
I was a teenager and I started seeing his movies, and the first one that really had a huge impact on me was Naked. I just could not believe what I was seeing. And Katrin Cartlidge then became an actor I was obsessed with and I sought out everything that she'd done. She reunited with him in Career Girls, and she was so wonderful. I got to work with her when I was 20, and I was just so excited to meet her and work with her. I couldn't believe it. I had so many questions.
At that point, I had seen pretty much every Mike Leigh movie, and I just said: "What was the process like?" She told me that when she auditioned for Naked he asked her to choose a character and then [Leigh] said, “just be in the room. Be in the room as this character, and I'm gonna watch you.” [So] she sat in a window and read a book for two and a half hours. There was something about that that was the most beautiful thing. He watched her read a book, and she said, “I was so in it. I was that person.” She felt an immense freedom in not trying to do something or trying to be interesting. She realized: "Oh, he's just interested in somebody being and that's the most interesting thing to him."
It is so hard for me when I'm working in a situation where there's a lot of control, because all I have is my instinct. I feel I start to second guess myself. I don't like the feeling of being controlled by somebody. And you know, I'll take a note. I love a note. I love working with a director, but the thought of really being in such collaboration with somebody is just magic.
That's my favorite thing about his films. He's never trying to force a moment. There's never anything in anyone's performance that feels artificial. And the thought of being an actor and getting to work that deeply on something and improvising in rehearsal… He comes up with this incredible script, and you know each other, there's an intimacy. And you know, just seeing Hard Truths recently, seeing what Marianne Jean-Baptiste does in that movie, and Michele Austin, and the rest of the cast — I just was like, “this is the dream.” It's my life's dream to get to work In this way and create something that feels like that.