March 23, 2023 • 35 mins
Melanie Lynskey is known as “the nicest person in Hollywood.” But today, she’s taking the gloves off. The star of the Showtime smash “Yellowjackets”, Melanie channels her dark side by playing complicated, uncompromising characters. In this episode, she reveals to Katie the decades of pain she experienced as she failed to attain Hollywood’s standards of beauty. It wasn’t until she decided not to play that game that she actually got what she wanted: success on her terms. And she’s not sorry for it.
This episode contains references to disordered eating that may be triggering to people with or in recovery from eating disorders.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
I'm Katie Kuric and this is Next Question. We've been
through a lot over the past few years, and with
all the bad stuff happening, it can be hard to
figure out how to bounce back, regroup and live better.
That's why this season of Next Question is all about resilience.
Think of it as a kind of survival guide to
(00:25):
navigating this crazy world we're living in. And by the way,
if you want to get smarter every morning with a
breakdown of the top news stories and fascinating takes on
health and wellness and pop culture, sign up for our
daily newsletter, wake Up Call by going to Katiecurik dot com.
(00:45):
Melanie Lensky is having a moment, and she's making it
her own. She's been appearing on film and TV for
almost thirty years, capturing the dark side of some very
complicated characters. I know what to do about Mother. We
don't want to go to too much trouble, some sort
(01:08):
of accident. That's Melanie at sixteen, playing opposite Kate Winslet
in Heavenly Creatures. It was the film debut for both
of them, and it was obvious that this schoolgirl from
New Zealand had a knack for something, and almost thirty
years later she was the merciless warlord and the last
(01:31):
of us. It has to stop. It has to stop now,
you mean now that you're in the cell, But before
people dying was okay, when you were safe and protected
and ratting on your neighbors. To Pedra, they put a
gun to my head. Here have I satisfied the necessary
(01:54):
conditions for you to talk? See what I mean? Hey,
wouldn't you want her in charge during a zombie apocalypse?
And now Melanie is getting tons of buzz as Shawna
in the runaway showtime hit Yellowjackets. Please state your name
for the record, Shawna, Shawna Sadeki, miss A DECKI do
(02:16):
you understand your rights as I have explained them to you? Yes?
I do. Why did you kill Adam Martin? What I
didn't didn't? What I didn't murder Adam? Whoever? I didn't
murder anyone. But the ride hasn't always been a smooth one.
(02:40):
She doesn't fit into a neat package of conventional Hollywood
beauty standards, and now well she's done apologizing for it.
In fact, if there's one thing she's learned after all
these years, it's that light's too short to worry about
unachievable goals. It just feels like such a waste of
time to me. Clearly, the perspective she's gained has only
(03:03):
made her stronger. Her skyrocketing career as a testament to that.
And if there's one thing we can all learn from Melanie,
it's that it's time to embrace our power, love the
bodies we're in, and stop apologizing. Are you battling cancer?
(03:24):
I'm passionate about raising awareness about early detection, and it's
also critical to understand all treatment options, especially their impact
on survival and quality of life. View Ray has reinvented
cancer treatment with Meridian MRI guided radiation therapy. We're nearly
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(03:46):
five sessions, often with little or no side effects. Innovation
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Locate a Meridian at feway dot com. Now let's get
to it, Melanie Lynskey, I'm so excited to talk to you.
I'm such a huge fan. I'm such a fan of yours.
(04:09):
I can't believe you even know who I am. It's
astonishing to me. So thank you so much for having me.
You know, I marvel at the ability of actors from
all over the world to perfect accents, and particularly when
they sound so American. Was it hard for you initially? Oh,
(04:30):
thank you so much. Well, I mean, in New Zealand,
we grew up with a lot of British television and
American television, so I was used to the accent. I think,
when it's something you grow up hearing. You know, it's
hard to be an American and do a New Zealand
accent because it's not familiar, right, But I was so
used to it. And then I just studied. I watched
(04:51):
movies and talked back to the movies and yeah, so
that's how I learned. And did you know from a
very early age you wanted to be an actor, because
I know you're a little girl growing up in New Plymouth,
New Zealand. Yes, And how did this spark your imagination
(05:12):
and the idea that this was a possible career for you?
You know, I was so shy as a child. I
was like painfully, painfully shy, and at some point, I
don't know what compelled me. I auditioned for a play
and I felt this enormous freedom and having lines to
say and getting to be on a stage kind of
(05:34):
inhabiting someone else's body. All my self consciousness went away.
I wasn't worried about what am I doing with my hands,
or what do I look like? Or how's everyone responding
to me? And I was about sex. And then I
just got addicted, like truly addicted. I was doing plays
at church, doing plays at school like whenever I could,
So you knew this was something that you were going
(05:57):
to pursue. Yeah, and then at sixty you got your
first big role in a movie that I remember and
I loved, called Heavenly Creatures. Yeah. I had been saying
that I wanted to be an actor, and everybody around
me said, that's not a real job. You got to
think about what you really want to do. But it
was my dream. And then I was fifteen and some
(06:20):
people came to my high school and did a movie audition,
and I got the job and Heavenly Creatures and went
off by myself for three months to make this incredible movie.
Was one of the world's greatest actresses and one of
the world's greatest directors, and I like it just was
like drama school. I learned so much. You don't fit
(06:42):
into this typical box for an actress. I was really
upset reading that. Not surprisingly, Harvey Weinstein was a real dick,
and you describe your co star as having this unfettered confidence,
and as you mentioned, I'll read, Melanie, you were shy
(07:02):
and Harvey Weinstein didn't help build up that confidence. Tell
me how you were treated at that time, which is
really aggravating to me. It's not like a traumatic, you know,
it feels a bit ridiculous to talk about when people
have had genuine, terrible traumas inflicted upon them by that person.
(07:24):
It just was more, you know, Kate and I had
been on this adventure together making this movie together, like
a little team. We were you know, some nights we
slept over together because we were so close we couldn't
let it go. And then during the release of the movie,
became apparent to me that I was not the important one,
(07:46):
and at a certain point I was kind of a hindrance.
It felt like, you know, I was shy. I would
take a minute to talk in interviews like often Kate
would just answer all the questions because I'd be kind
of collecting myself. Were also sixteen years old. Yeah, I was.
I was so young, and I just like the fact
that I was in New York. I just was you know.
(08:08):
We were staying at the Four Seasons off of Central Park,
and every day we just would like take all the
snacks out of the mini bar. But he just there
was just like a vibe of like, yeah, like every
time I was there, I was kind of ignored, sat
at the end of the table kind of thing, and
Kate was being very celebrated deservedly, but whenever there was
(08:31):
a fancy dinner, I just was treated as though I
wasn't there by Harvey in particular, and it was hurtful.
Did that give you a sense that, gosh, maybe I'm
going to be a bit of an outsider in this industry? Yeah,
it really did. And I just I started to think,
did I do a bad job? You know? And I
(08:54):
always have loved film criticism, so I asked to read
every review in Merrimax was sending me the reviews and
they were wonderful. So I was like, Okay, people, I
respect people have been reading or saying wonderful things about
the work that I did, So what is it? And
it kind of boils down to you know, you're it,
(09:14):
You're not the thing, And then you know, Kate was
getting offers from agents and millions of scripts and it
just wasn't happening for me, and I just had to
sort of go. I didn't expect that to happen, the
Kate within Slid experience, right, but you expected something. I
thought maybe I'd get an agent, and I just for
a couple of years nothing happened, and then a very
(09:36):
sweet lady in Los Angeles signed me and I started
working again, but it was definitely a slow process. We'll
be back right after this. Are you or a loved
one battling cancer. I'm passionate about raising awareness about the
importance of early detection and for patients and their caregivers
(09:59):
to fully understand all available treatment options, especially those that
have meaningful impact to extending survival and improving quality of life.
You know, too often the length of treatment, recovery period,
and debilitating side effects can be difficult to cope with.
Our partners at View Ray have reinvented cancer treatment with
(10:22):
Meridian MRI guided radiation therapy for those who qualify. Around
eighty percent of patients complete treatment and as few as
five sessions, often with little or no side effects. Viewray
is working to educate patients about this life changing cancer
treatment and where patients can find a Meridian treatment center.
(10:44):
Innovation like Meridian gives me hope for the millions of
people around the world currently battling cancer. So talk to
your doctor to find hospitals where a Meridian is available.
Visit viewry dot com. What is it do you think, Melanie,
(11:05):
about your upbringing or about your training that has allowed
you to tap into something that is complex and mysterious
and makes you particularly adapt at portrayed deeply misunderstood characters.
Do you ever think about, like what helped shape me
(11:27):
and allow me to do that? Thank you first of
all for saying that I think I was always very
sensitive and now you know, I'm in my mid forties now,
and this is the first time in my life that
I've had kind of true, like mainstream success, And I'm
so grateful for all the years of being anonymous, all
(11:50):
the years of being under the radar. Honestly, all the
years of struggling and getting to know myself and living
life and getting to observe people, because that's where you learn,
that's where you you know, Empathy is such a big
part of acting and the ability to understand someone else's situation,
and you can really be put in a little bubble
(12:11):
if you're a famous person. So I'm very grateful that
I was not famous at a young age that I
got to just live and experience things. You are having
a moment, as they say, I'm sure you've seen a
lot of the headlines. Melanie Melanie Lynsky is having a moment. Yes.
And I read in an article that your psychic predicted this.
(12:38):
I mean, do you have a regular psychic or is
this somebody You happen to see the hand on a
window and decided to give it a try. Every time
I saw the hand on a window people they would say, oh,
you have a duck or a tragedy is all around you.
I was like, oh god, I never got and then
they would charge you. They'd be like, that's a hundred
(13:01):
dollars for hearing that your life is tragic. No. I
met this woman through a friend of a friend. She's
absolutely amazing. Her name's Fatima. She lives in New Orleans.
Her website is called Awakened with Fatima dot com, and
it's kind of like having a very empowering therapy session
every time you talk to her. But there is one
(13:23):
time in the middle of the pandemic, I was feeling
kind of hopeless. I had been pregnant, I lost my pregnancy.
It was a very painful, sad time for me, and
I wasn't doing anything, going anywhere working, it was the pandemic.
And she just said, you're about to enter into a
(13:45):
time in your career that you thought wasn't going to
happen because it didn't happen when you were a twenty five.
And I said, Fatima, I don't think so, it's not
really how it goes, like, bless you, but no, and
she was like, no, it's going to happen. And then
she said you've already done something and it's going to
come back. And I said, well, I did this pilot,
(14:08):
but I haven't heard a peep, like I literally haven't
heard anyone say like the pilot was great or anything.
And eight months, yeah, crickets. And she was like, Nope,
it's gonna get picked up. It's going to be a
big success. And she just sounded crazy, like I was like,
you know what, she can't always be right. She's probably
stressed out she is always right. She's always right. And
(14:30):
of course she was talking about Yellow Jackets. She was
talking about Yellow Jackets. Yeah, which is a fantastic show.
I'm so excited for the second season. Oh thanks, And
I want to talk all about your role in that,
but I also want to talk a little bit about you.
Once said that you weren't getting any roles, and the
(14:52):
ones that you were getting would be quote, the fat
character just sitting in the corner eating a chocolate bar
while the pretty girls are all at the dance. Yeah,
And I objected to that. I objected to their very existence.
And also, you know, the other painful thing about it
was that I was in the middle of a very
(15:13):
very intense eating disorder where I would eat eight hundred
calories a day and if I ate anything over, I
would throw up. Sorry trigger warning for anyone you know
with eating disorders. But I was starving myself as much
as I possibly could. I was obsessively exercising, and I
was still like a size six, you know, that was
(15:34):
as small as it was going to get. And I
was still being treated like the chubby one and the
plane one, and it kind of my self acceptance kind
of came out of exhaustion at a certain point, because
I was like, it doesn't matter what I do, and
I'm spending so much time worrying about like what's on
this salad, like you know, never having salad, dressing, never
(15:57):
eating a French fry, and I just couldn't anymore. I
was so tired. I didn't want to be playing the
roles that were coming to me, so I was passing
on everything and I just thought like, maybe I can't
be an actor. And then there was this kind of
amazing thing that happened that the more I came to
(16:19):
terms with me and my body and who I was
and what truly was like a healthy point for me,
the more my world started opening up. It was like
the universe was rewarding me for believing in myself. That
sounds a bit mystic, and for accepting yourself. Yeah, you know.
(16:39):
I also had an eating disorder when I was in
college and a few years afterwards, and I know this
kind of strange mentality that takes over where it's kind
of an all or nothing situation. If I ate a
stick of gum that wasn't sugarless, yeah, I would feel
(16:59):
like a failure and then punish slash reward myself by benching,
because I'd have to start again tomorrow on this quest
for perfection. Yeah, and it's so damaging physically and mentally,
and I'm so glad for both of us that we
(17:20):
stopped doing that. Yeah, I'm so glad for you. It's
exhausting and it's I mean, you're one of the most
brilliant women in the world. The fact that any part
of your brain was occupied with what your body looked
like as a tragedy. You know, the fact that it
just makes it impossible for us to be our whole
(17:43):
selves because you're obsisting over something that's so meaningless. How
did you keep going though? So you said you accepted
yourself the universe opened up, and tell me about what
happened after that? Did you start getting the kind of
roles that you wanted? I not exactly. I mean I
(18:07):
was very happy being a working actor, and I just
tried to make the best choices I could within what
I was being given. And I guess the kind of
turning point for me. I did this movie called Shattered Glass,
which I think was in two thousand and four. Do
you see all those editors at the correspondence dinner why
(18:29):
they were circling him. Is that what you want? Amy?
Do you get a bunch of smoke blown up your
ass by a pack of editors? Yes? Yes it is.
And when I saw that movie, I just had a
very deep understanding. I was like, this is how I
want to feel every time I see myself in anything.
And of course that didn't happen. There were still disappointments
(18:52):
after that, but it became my set point for quality
work and the type of work I wanted to do,
and I really tried to follow a path that lead
me into more independent movies after that. Let's talk about
(19:17):
Yellow Jackets, which is, as I mentioned, an incredible show.
It's a soccer team, a girls soccer team. They're plane
crashes in the wilderness, and it really becomes a sort
of Lord of the Flies, survival of the fittest, and
each character carries a mystery of how they survived into
(19:42):
adulthood and how they manifest the trauma of being in
that situation. How did that come together? And why do
you think it's struck a chord among people who are
watching it? I mean, I just got a script, got
an offer in a script, and it was so good.
(20:02):
And I just was like, I don't know how many
people got offered this before me, but thank you for passing.
You're crazy, whoever you are. I just was so excited.
The thing for me about the pilot was that there
are so many women, so many female characters, and they
all felt like human beings. They all felt like people
(20:26):
that I knew or wanted to know. There was no
sort of stereotypes, and I think that that's the thing
that's been appealing. Part of it is the mystery of
the show and the fact that the show is very,
very compelling and well written. But the other thing I
think is that the women feel real, Like it's a
(20:46):
group of women in their mid forties, and we all
kind of look like it. You know, we all look
like we've lived, we all resemble someone that you might know.
You know, my co stars are absolutely beautiful, but there's
not like a level of perfection that anyone's trying to attain.
We were encouraged to not we're makeup. We were encouraged
(21:08):
to look like real people, and I just think it's refreshing.
I think people want to see themselves who represented and
I think I think also the young cast is so
great they are. They're amazing too, They're just amazing. So
it's just kind of a magical. There's some moments working
on the show where I'm like, oh, there's just magic here,
(21:30):
just something magic is happening. But it is so well
written and the characters are so awesome. You play Shauna
who has this strength and yet this vulnerability too. How
did you go about playing Shaun as someone who takes
a rabbit who's eating her vegetables and basically bilets it
(21:54):
and serves it to her family for dinner with a
big smile on her face. This chili is really good night,
It's really good new Russipe. Actually it is Callie forgot
to take the men out of the freezer, so I
(22:14):
killed a rabbit in the garden, skinned it. Chin to Ana,
she says, Christmam, you're in a mood. You were so
freaking weird. Oh it's one of my favorite scenes. It
was so funny. It's so funny and yet so disturbing.
It's so funny. I mean, there's very little that I
(22:36):
have to do. It's all on the page. This character
is so fully realized. She's everything. She's very very funny,
she's sarcastic. She's kind of rough around the edges, but
she's like an empowered sexual woman. I mean, it's there.
They're just giving me incredible stuff to do in every episode.
(22:57):
It seems like with every role you take, Melanie, this
idea of what an actor should look like continues to
dog you. On the set of Yellow Jackets, there was
one person who I was working alongside in some capacity
(23:17):
who was very concerned with my body. And it was
disappointing because I had said to that person ahead of time, Listen,
I had a miscarriage. I have not been able to
lose the weight that I gained from being pregnant. I
think there's some hormonal thing. I've gone through four rounds
of IVF since I had my miscarriage. My body is
(23:39):
sort of going through it right now, and I'm just
trying to give myself some grace and be kind. And
they just had a problem, you know. It was just
one single voice, and I do have to say at
a certain point, you know, as somebody who had had
an eating disorder, my first instinct was to turn on myself,
be full of shame. You know, I had been on
(24:02):
a diet, I had done you know, nothing was happening,
Like sometimes it just is what it is. Your hormones
are like out of control and your body's protecting itself.
So there wasn't really anything I could do. I was
driving myself crazy and then I said, you know what,
I think, I'm going to go to the producers. And
I went to them and I said, is this a problem?
(24:24):
You know I've been told it's a problem. I'm trying
my best, and they were horrified, mortified, and they just said, listen,
this person has come to us. We shut it down.
We said, please stop talking about that. It's inappropriate. We
think she's perfect. And Ashley was one of the co
creators of the show, wrote me this beautiful letter that
just said, I wish that I had seen someone who
(24:47):
looked like you on television when I was growing up,
and especially in a love triangle with two hot men.
It might have like shifted my future a little bit.
And this is something that I want to do for women.
So the team involved in the creation of the show,
that's their feeling about it, and I really did feel
empowered by them. And also I was playing a character
(25:09):
who honestly doesn't think about your body, doesn't think about it.
It's you know, if someone was to say, like, oh,
are you sure about those genes, she'd be like, what
the fuck are you talking about? You know, it's not.
And there's an empowerment in that too, especially for me
at that time of my life, feeling so fragile and vulnerable,
to have to go to work and be in the
skin of somebody who's just like, yeah, here I am.
(25:31):
This is what I look like. You know, I think
I look great. It really helped me sort of process
some of my own feelings. Do you sometimes feel like
sissiv us, you know, pushing a boulder up a hill,
trying to be the embodiment of what it means to
be an inclusive society, what it means to appreciate and
(25:52):
love bodies and people of all different types. Because I
feel like we make gains and then we, you know,
take two steps backwards, and it's very frustrating, isn't it.
It is very frustrating. You know, in feminist movements, there's
just a constant backlash, right Like women start to gain power,
(26:16):
of women start to edge towards equality, and there's some
kind of movement that is designed to push us back again.
I feel like right now there's this current kind of
craze for super thin bodies again, and I'm just like,
oh God, really, like you know, everyone's doing oh zemperic
or whatever it's called, and right it's like, are we
(26:37):
not past this? I guess not, Like like it's it's
just going to keep going in waves and I just
want to shake people and be like, this is designed
to make you waste your time on this, This is
designed to take your power away. You want to be
thinking about you your life, What do you want to
do with your life, Who do you want to be
for your kids? Who do you want to be for
(26:58):
the other women in the world. Like it just feels
like such a waste of time to me. And yet
and yet it keeps copying up with this. Adrian rich
tweet that in the Last of Us you were looking
to Life of Luxury and not Linda Hamilton enough, and
you had such a great response a thing that I
(27:21):
will always push back on as this idea that people
with curvier bodies, bigger bodies are greedian, lazy. Yes, the
life of luxury. Yeah, so that was the thing I
think that really I was like, you know what, hang
on a minute, I know how I live. I know
that I'm a healthy person, and I don't like that,
(27:42):
and I just, you know, I just wanted to make
a point first of all, to show I was doing.
It's a post apocalyptic scenario with mushroom zombies, like anything's possible, right,
So I just I just have an issue with things
that are just misogynistic and just hateful for no reason
because and loaded and loaded, Yeah, I'm going to I'm
(28:06):
not going to push back on everything, because it would
be all I would all I spent my day doing.
Because I get a lot of people writing to me
telling me how they feel about my body. That must
be so exhausting. Why do you even read it? I
don't know, Because I like Twitter. I like reading film
critics honestly, Like I could just have a feed that's
(28:26):
just the critics I like. But I don't know. I
do think about this, and sometimes I do. Sometimes I
just like, put my phone down. I have a four
year old. I want to hang out with my child
if I'm not working. I don't want to be thrust
into a pool of self loathing because of what some
idiot on the internet said to me. And you have
a little girl, now, Yeah, and so I'm sure you
(28:49):
think about this and how she'll move in the world
and feel comfortable with who she is, because it does
trickle down to especially girls at a very young age,
this pressure to look and be a certain way. I'm
sure that's something that's probably in the back of your
(29:10):
mind a bit as you race this beautiful daughter. Oh
my gosh, it's in the forefront of my mind. I
It's also been another good listen for me because I
realize how often throughout a day I nitpick myself, and
I've given myself the challenge to never criticize myself in
front of her. So, you know, every time she was
(29:32):
cuddling me when she was little, I'd be like, isn't
mummy's tummy nice and soft? You know? And she'd be like,
you're so soft, Mama. She just thinks I'm the most
beautiful person she's ever seen, and I don't want her
to think otherwise. She doesn't know the word fat. She's
never said anything negative about somebody's appearance. She doesn't understand
that concept. So as long as I can protect her
(29:54):
from that, I know I'm not going to be able
to do it forever, but I'm going to try, and
I'll so praising her for her value when it doesn't
have anything to do with her appearance. All the time.
The thing that is most important to her is that
she's kind, and she's so kind, and the thing that's
most important to her is that other people are kind.
(30:16):
So she's very special. She's such a good little person.
And it sounds like you're a wonderful mom, but also
that your husband, Jason is a wonderful dad. Oh, I
got so lucky. First of all, you know, of course,
I always think of John Ritter, who was so beloved
and died far too young. Yeah, and Jason sounds like
(30:41):
an amazing human being. He's very much a co parent, very,
which is wonderful. I also really appreciate it, Melanie, how
you thank your nanny when you want a Critic's Choice
awards saying she is the most important person, because I
think the people who help us take hair of the
most important thing in our lives are so often not
(31:05):
appreciated or celebrated. Absolutely, it's the hardest job in the world.
She's amazing, and Jason is such a good dad and
such a good partner. You're very lucky. I'm so lucky,
Like you genuinely. He's also really sacrificed for me to
have this moment in my career. Like today, I had
(31:25):
to get ready for a day of press, and he
got up, he got her off to school, did the lunch,
put her here in little pigtails. My husband, when I
was doing the Today Show, would get up early, obviously
take our daughter to preschool and she'd have a real
rats nest and she'd have to comb it and put
it in a pony tail. And those are such sweet moments.
(31:50):
I think it's so sweet. It's so sweet. By the way,
I should say how lucky he is to have you,
because I know sometimes he tweets these wonderful words of
praise for you. The good news is he's not just
doing that on Twitter. He's doing that at home no
matter what. Like I can be in the rastiest, most
(32:11):
disgusting pair of sweat pants and he'll be like, you
look gorgeous, just like, oh my gosh, I don't. My
husband used to say to me, you know, I think
you look prettier without makeup. Oh that's sweet. I mean,
who says that. Yeah, my current husband. I haven't heard
(32:31):
him say that. I probably need to talk to him
about that. I know we're almost out of time, but
what are you excited about? And so you have yellow
jackets on the horizon. I would love to do a play.
There's so many things, but most of all right now,
(32:51):
I just want to hang out with my child and
do lots of cuddles and take her to soccer practice.
And I feel like you've been on such a journey
of self acceptance and self appreciation. Any advice for women
who might feel they're less than or not good enough,
(33:12):
or not than enough, or not pretty enough, or not
successful enough and all those enough that seemed to haunt
us on a daily basis. I mean, I just look
back on my life and I think about you know,
when I was nineteen, I did a movie in the
South of France and I wouldn't eat anything. I wouldn't
(33:32):
eat like I never went out for pasta. I never
had a delicious French meal. There's so much of life
that I missed out on because I was trying to
fit into something that I was never going to be.
And you know, we have one life. Probably I don't know,
but just you're going to look back and regret those
(33:52):
times in your life that you didn't fully get to
live because you were so worried about what do you
look like? I look back and I think like, oh,
why didn't I just put a swimsuit on? Now I
wear a swimsuit all the time. I don't care. I'm
just like, sure, you know I do. Also another thing,
I don't want my daughter to see me feeling self
conscious about having a swimsuit on. Like a body's just
(34:13):
a body. So just as soon as you can try
to let go and try to be fully prisoned in
your life, do it, because it's just not worth it.
Those are great words of wisdom. I hope a lot
of people take them to heart. Melanie, You're so wonderful
and I think you know you you. I think you
(34:35):
are one of the nicest or the nicest person in Hollywood.
So thank you. That's very sweet. I think my husband does.
But thank you so much. Thanks for listening everyone. If
you have a question for me or want to share
your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world reach out.
(34:57):
You can leave a short message at six O nine
five one two five five h five, or you can
send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to
hear from you. Next question is a production of iHeartMedia
and Katie Currechmedia. The executive producers are Me, Katie Curich,
and Courtney Litz. Our supervising producer is Marcy Thompson. Our
(35:19):
producers are Adriana Fasio and Catherine Law. Our audio engineer
is Matt Russell, who also composed our theme music. For
more information about today's episode, or to sign up for
my newsletter, wake Up Call, go to the description in
the podcast app, or visit us at Katiecurrek dot com.
You can also find me on Instagram and all my
(35:39):
social media channels. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows,
I'm Katie Kuric and this is Next Question. We've been
through a lot over the past few years, and with
all the bad stuff happening, it can be hard to
figure out how to bounce back, regroup and live better.
That's why this season of Next Question is all about resilience.
Think of it as a kind of survival guide to
(00:25):
navigating this crazy world we're living in. And by the way,
if you want to get smarter every morning with a
breakdown of the top news stories and fascinating takes on
health and wellness and pop culture, sign up for our
daily newsletter, wake Up Call by going to Katiecurik dot com.
(00:45):
Melanie Lensky is having a moment, and she's making it
her own. She's been appearing on film and TV for
almost thirty years, capturing the dark side of some very
complicated characters. I know what to do about Mother. We
don't want to go to too much trouble, some sort
(01:08):
of accident. That's Melanie at sixteen, playing opposite Kate Winslet
in Heavenly Creatures. It was the film debut for both
of them, and it was obvious that this schoolgirl from
New Zealand had a knack for something, and almost thirty
years later she was the merciless warlord and the last
(01:31):
of us. It has to stop. It has to stop now,
you mean now that you're in the cell, But before
people dying was okay, when you were safe and protected
and ratting on your neighbors. To Pedra, they put a
gun to my head. Here have I satisfied the necessary
(01:54):
conditions for you to talk? See what I mean? Hey,
wouldn't you want her in charge during a zombie apocalypse?
And now Melanie is getting tons of buzz as Shawna
in the runaway showtime hit Yellowjackets. Please state your name
for the record, Shawna, Shawna Sadeki, miss A DECKI do
(02:16):
you understand your rights as I have explained them to you? Yes?
I do. Why did you kill Adam Martin? What I
didn't didn't? What I didn't murder Adam? Whoever? I didn't
murder anyone. But the ride hasn't always been a smooth one.
(02:40):
She doesn't fit into a neat package of conventional Hollywood
beauty standards, and now well she's done apologizing for it.
In fact, if there's one thing she's learned after all
these years, it's that light's too short to worry about
unachievable goals. It just feels like such a waste of
time to me. Clearly, the perspective she's gained has only
(03:03):
made her stronger. Her skyrocketing career as a testament to that.
And if there's one thing we can all learn from Melanie,
it's that it's time to embrace our power, love the
bodies we're in, and stop apologizing. Are you battling cancer?
(03:24):
I'm passionate about raising awareness about early detection, and it's
also critical to understand all treatment options, especially their impact
on survival and quality of life. View Ray has reinvented
cancer treatment with Meridian MRI guided radiation therapy. We're nearly
eighty percent of patient's complete treatment and as few as
(03:46):
five sessions, often with little or no side effects. Innovation
like Meridian gives hope to millions of people around the world.
Locate a Meridian at feway dot com. Now let's get
to it, Melanie Lynskey, I'm so excited to talk to you.
I'm such a huge fan. I'm such a fan of yours.
(04:09):
I can't believe you even know who I am. It's
astonishing to me. So thank you so much for having me.
You know, I marvel at the ability of actors from
all over the world to perfect accents, and particularly when
they sound so American. Was it hard for you initially? Oh,
(04:30):
thank you so much. Well, I mean, in New Zealand,
we grew up with a lot of British television and
American television, so I was used to the accent. I think,
when it's something you grow up hearing. You know, it's
hard to be an American and do a New Zealand
accent because it's not familiar, right, But I was so
used to it. And then I just studied. I watched
(04:51):
movies and talked back to the movies and yeah, so
that's how I learned. And did you know from a
very early age you wanted to be an actor, because
I know you're a little girl growing up in New Plymouth,
New Zealand. Yes, And how did this spark your imagination
(05:12):
and the idea that this was a possible career for you?
You know, I was so shy as a child. I
was like painfully, painfully shy, and at some point, I
don't know what compelled me. I auditioned for a play
and I felt this enormous freedom and having lines to
say and getting to be on a stage kind of
(05:34):
inhabiting someone else's body. All my self consciousness went away.
I wasn't worried about what am I doing with my hands,
or what do I look like? Or how's everyone responding
to me? And I was about sex. And then I
just got addicted, like truly addicted. I was doing plays
at church, doing plays at school like whenever I could,
So you knew this was something that you were going
(05:57):
to pursue. Yeah, and then at sixty you got your
first big role in a movie that I remember and
I loved, called Heavenly Creatures. Yeah. I had been saying
that I wanted to be an actor, and everybody around
me said, that's not a real job. You got to
think about what you really want to do. But it
was my dream. And then I was fifteen and some
(06:20):
people came to my high school and did a movie audition,
and I got the job and Heavenly Creatures and went
off by myself for three months to make this incredible movie.
Was one of the world's greatest actresses and one of
the world's greatest directors, and I like it just was
like drama school. I learned so much. You don't fit
(06:42):
into this typical box for an actress. I was really
upset reading that. Not surprisingly, Harvey Weinstein was a real dick,
and you describe your co star as having this unfettered confidence,
and as you mentioned, I'll read, Melanie, you were shy
(07:02):
and Harvey Weinstein didn't help build up that confidence. Tell
me how you were treated at that time, which is
really aggravating to me. It's not like a traumatic, you know,
it feels a bit ridiculous to talk about when people
have had genuine, terrible traumas inflicted upon them by that person.
(07:24):
It just was more, you know, Kate and I had
been on this adventure together making this movie together, like
a little team. We were you know, some nights we
slept over together because we were so close we couldn't
let it go. And then during the release of the movie,
became apparent to me that I was not the important one,
(07:46):
and at a certain point I was kind of a hindrance.
It felt like, you know, I was shy. I would
take a minute to talk in interviews like often Kate
would just answer all the questions because I'd be kind
of collecting myself. Were also sixteen years old. Yeah, I was.
I was so young, and I just like the fact
that I was in New York. I just was you know.
(08:08):
We were staying at the Four Seasons off of Central Park,
and every day we just would like take all the
snacks out of the mini bar. But he just there
was just like a vibe of like, yeah, like every
time I was there, I was kind of ignored, sat
at the end of the table kind of thing, and
Kate was being very celebrated deservedly, but whenever there was
(08:31):
a fancy dinner, I just was treated as though I
wasn't there by Harvey in particular, and it was hurtful.
Did that give you a sense that, gosh, maybe I'm
going to be a bit of an outsider in this industry? Yeah,
it really did. And I just I started to think,
did I do a bad job? You know? And I
(08:54):
always have loved film criticism, so I asked to read
every review in Merrimax was sending me the reviews and
they were wonderful. So I was like, Okay, people, I
respect people have been reading or saying wonderful things about
the work that I did, So what is it? And
it kind of boils down to you know, you're it,
(09:14):
You're not the thing, And then you know, Kate was
getting offers from agents and millions of scripts and it
just wasn't happening for me, and I just had to
sort of go. I didn't expect that to happen, the
Kate within Slid experience, right, but you expected something. I
thought maybe I'd get an agent, and I just for
a couple of years nothing happened, and then a very
(09:36):
sweet lady in Los Angeles signed me and I started
working again, but it was definitely a slow process. We'll
be back right after this. Are you or a loved
one battling cancer. I'm passionate about raising awareness about the
importance of early detection and for patients and their caregivers
(09:59):
to fully understand all available treatment options, especially those that
have meaningful impact to extending survival and improving quality of life.
You know, too often the length of treatment, recovery period,
and debilitating side effects can be difficult to cope with.
Our partners at View Ray have reinvented cancer treatment with
(10:22):
Meridian MRI guided radiation therapy for those who qualify. Around
eighty percent of patients complete treatment and as few as
five sessions, often with little or no side effects. Viewray
is working to educate patients about this life changing cancer
treatment and where patients can find a Meridian treatment center.
(10:44):
Innovation like Meridian gives me hope for the millions of
people around the world currently battling cancer. So talk to
your doctor to find hospitals where a Meridian is available.
Visit viewry dot com. What is it do you think, Melanie,
(11:05):
about your upbringing or about your training that has allowed
you to tap into something that is complex and mysterious
and makes you particularly adapt at portrayed deeply misunderstood characters.
Do you ever think about, like what helped shape me
(11:27):
and allow me to do that? Thank you first of
all for saying that I think I was always very
sensitive and now you know, I'm in my mid forties now,
and this is the first time in my life that
I've had kind of true, like mainstream success, And I'm
so grateful for all the years of being anonymous, all
(11:50):
the years of being under the radar. Honestly, all the
years of struggling and getting to know myself and living
life and getting to observe people, because that's where you learn,
that's where you you know, Empathy is such a big
part of acting and the ability to understand someone else's situation,
and you can really be put in a little bubble
(12:11):
if you're a famous person. So I'm very grateful that
I was not famous at a young age that I
got to just live and experience things. You are having
a moment, as they say, I'm sure you've seen a
lot of the headlines. Melanie Melanie Lynsky is having a moment. Yes.
And I read in an article that your psychic predicted this.
(12:38):
I mean, do you have a regular psychic or is
this somebody You happen to see the hand on a
window and decided to give it a try. Every time
I saw the hand on a window people they would say, oh,
you have a duck or a tragedy is all around you.
I was like, oh god, I never got and then
they would charge you. They'd be like, that's a hundred
(13:01):
dollars for hearing that your life is tragic. No. I
met this woman through a friend of a friend. She's
absolutely amazing. Her name's Fatima. She lives in New Orleans.
Her website is called Awakened with Fatima dot com, and
it's kind of like having a very empowering therapy session
every time you talk to her. But there is one
(13:23):
time in the middle of the pandemic, I was feeling
kind of hopeless. I had been pregnant, I lost my pregnancy.
It was a very painful, sad time for me, and
I wasn't doing anything, going anywhere working, it was the pandemic.
And she just said, you're about to enter into a
(13:45):
time in your career that you thought wasn't going to
happen because it didn't happen when you were a twenty five.
And I said, Fatima, I don't think so, it's not
really how it goes, like, bless you, but no, and
she was like, no, it's going to happen. And then
she said you've already done something and it's going to
come back. And I said, well, I did this pilot,
(14:08):
but I haven't heard a peep, like I literally haven't
heard anyone say like the pilot was great or anything.
And eight months, yeah, crickets. And she was like, Nope,
it's gonna get picked up. It's going to be a
big success. And she just sounded crazy, like I was like,
you know what, she can't always be right. She's probably
stressed out she is always right. She's always right. And
(14:30):
of course she was talking about Yellow Jackets. She was
talking about Yellow Jackets. Yeah, which is a fantastic show.
I'm so excited for the second season. Oh thanks, And
I want to talk all about your role in that,
but I also want to talk a little bit about you.
Once said that you weren't getting any roles, and the
(14:52):
ones that you were getting would be quote, the fat
character just sitting in the corner eating a chocolate bar
while the pretty girls are all at the dance. Yeah,
And I objected to that. I objected to their very existence.
And also, you know, the other painful thing about it
was that I was in the middle of a very
(15:13):
very intense eating disorder where I would eat eight hundred
calories a day and if I ate anything over, I
would throw up. Sorry trigger warning for anyone you know
with eating disorders. But I was starving myself as much
as I possibly could. I was obsessively exercising, and I
was still like a size six, you know, that was
(15:34):
as small as it was going to get. And I
was still being treated like the chubby one and the
plane one, and it kind of my self acceptance kind
of came out of exhaustion at a certain point, because
I was like, it doesn't matter what I do, and
I'm spending so much time worrying about like what's on
this salad, like you know, never having salad, dressing, never
(15:57):
eating a French fry, and I just couldn't anymore. I
was so tired. I didn't want to be playing the
roles that were coming to me, so I was passing
on everything and I just thought like, maybe I can't
be an actor. And then there was this kind of
amazing thing that happened that the more I came to
(16:19):
terms with me and my body and who I was
and what truly was like a healthy point for me,
the more my world started opening up. It was like
the universe was rewarding me for believing in myself. That
sounds a bit mystic, and for accepting yourself. Yeah, you know.
(16:39):
I also had an eating disorder when I was in
college and a few years afterwards, and I know this
kind of strange mentality that takes over where it's kind
of an all or nothing situation. If I ate a
stick of gum that wasn't sugarless, yeah, I would feel
(16:59):
like a failure and then punish slash reward myself by benching,
because I'd have to start again tomorrow on this quest
for perfection. Yeah, and it's so damaging physically and mentally,
and I'm so glad for both of us that we
(17:20):
stopped doing that. Yeah, I'm so glad for you. It's
exhausting and it's I mean, you're one of the most
brilliant women in the world. The fact that any part
of your brain was occupied with what your body looked
like as a tragedy. You know, the fact that it
just makes it impossible for us to be our whole
(17:43):
selves because you're obsisting over something that's so meaningless. How
did you keep going though? So you said you accepted
yourself the universe opened up, and tell me about what
happened after that? Did you start getting the kind of
roles that you wanted? I not exactly. I mean I
(18:07):
was very happy being a working actor, and I just
tried to make the best choices I could within what
I was being given. And I guess the kind of
turning point for me. I did this movie called Shattered Glass,
which I think was in two thousand and four. Do
you see all those editors at the correspondence dinner why
(18:29):
they were circling him. Is that what you want? Amy?
Do you get a bunch of smoke blown up your
ass by a pack of editors? Yes? Yes it is.
And when I saw that movie, I just had a
very deep understanding. I was like, this is how I
want to feel every time I see myself in anything.
And of course that didn't happen. There were still disappointments
(18:52):
after that, but it became my set point for quality
work and the type of work I wanted to do,
and I really tried to follow a path that lead
me into more independent movies after that. Let's talk about
(19:17):
Yellow Jackets, which is, as I mentioned, an incredible show.
It's a soccer team, a girls soccer team. They're plane
crashes in the wilderness, and it really becomes a sort
of Lord of the Flies, survival of the fittest, and
each character carries a mystery of how they survived into
(19:42):
adulthood and how they manifest the trauma of being in
that situation. How did that come together? And why do
you think it's struck a chord among people who are
watching it? I mean, I just got a script, got
an offer in a script, and it was so good.
(20:02):
And I just was like, I don't know how many
people got offered this before me, but thank you for passing.
You're crazy, whoever you are. I just was so excited.
The thing for me about the pilot was that there
are so many women, so many female characters, and they
all felt like human beings. They all felt like people
(20:26):
that I knew or wanted to know. There was no
sort of stereotypes, and I think that that's the thing
that's been appealing. Part of it is the mystery of
the show and the fact that the show is very,
very compelling and well written. But the other thing I
think is that the women feel real, Like it's a
(20:46):
group of women in their mid forties, and we all
kind of look like it. You know, we all look
like we've lived, we all resemble someone that you might know.
You know, my co stars are absolutely beautiful, but there's
not like a level of perfection that anyone's trying to attain.
We were encouraged to not we're makeup. We were encouraged
(21:08):
to look like real people, and I just think it's refreshing.
I think people want to see themselves who represented and
I think I think also the young cast is so
great they are. They're amazing too, They're just amazing. So
it's just kind of a magical. There's some moments working
on the show where I'm like, oh, there's just magic here,
(21:30):
just something magic is happening. But it is so well
written and the characters are so awesome. You play Shauna
who has this strength and yet this vulnerability too. How
did you go about playing Shaun as someone who takes
a rabbit who's eating her vegetables and basically bilets it
(21:54):
and serves it to her family for dinner with a
big smile on her face. This chili is really good night,
It's really good new Russipe. Actually it is Callie forgot
to take the men out of the freezer, so I
(22:14):
killed a rabbit in the garden, skinned it. Chin to Ana,
she says, Christmam, you're in a mood. You were so
freaking weird. Oh it's one of my favorite scenes. It
was so funny. It's so funny and yet so disturbing.
It's so funny. I mean, there's very little that I
(22:36):
have to do. It's all on the page. This character
is so fully realized. She's everything. She's very very funny,
she's sarcastic. She's kind of rough around the edges, but
she's like an empowered sexual woman. I mean, it's there.
They're just giving me incredible stuff to do in every episode.
(22:57):
It seems like with every role you take, Melanie, this
idea of what an actor should look like continues to
dog you. On the set of Yellow Jackets, there was
one person who I was working alongside in some capacity
(23:17):
who was very concerned with my body. And it was
disappointing because I had said to that person ahead of time, Listen,
I had a miscarriage. I have not been able to
lose the weight that I gained from being pregnant. I
think there's some hormonal thing. I've gone through four rounds
of IVF since I had my miscarriage. My body is
(23:39):
sort of going through it right now, and I'm just
trying to give myself some grace and be kind. And
they just had a problem, you know. It was just
one single voice, and I do have to say at
a certain point, you know, as somebody who had had
an eating disorder, my first instinct was to turn on myself,
be full of shame. You know, I had been on
(24:02):
a diet, I had done you know, nothing was happening,
Like sometimes it just is what it is. Your hormones
are like out of control and your body's protecting itself.
So there wasn't really anything I could do. I was
driving myself crazy and then I said, you know what,
I think, I'm going to go to the producers. And
I went to them and I said, is this a problem?
(24:24):
You know I've been told it's a problem. I'm trying
my best, and they were horrified, mortified, and they just said, listen,
this person has come to us. We shut it down.
We said, please stop talking about that. It's inappropriate. We
think she's perfect. And Ashley was one of the co
creators of the show, wrote me this beautiful letter that
just said, I wish that I had seen someone who
(24:47):
looked like you on television when I was growing up,
and especially in a love triangle with two hot men.
It might have like shifted my future a little bit.
And this is something that I want to do for women.
So the team involved in the creation of the show,
that's their feeling about it, and I really did feel
empowered by them. And also I was playing a character
(25:09):
who honestly doesn't think about your body, doesn't think about it.
It's you know, if someone was to say, like, oh,
are you sure about those genes, she'd be like, what
the fuck are you talking about? You know, it's not.
And there's an empowerment in that too, especially for me
at that time of my life, feeling so fragile and vulnerable,
to have to go to work and be in the
skin of somebody who's just like, yeah, here I am.
(25:31):
This is what I look like. You know, I think
I look great. It really helped me sort of process
some of my own feelings. Do you sometimes feel like
sissiv us, you know, pushing a boulder up a hill,
trying to be the embodiment of what it means to
be an inclusive society, what it means to appreciate and
(25:52):
love bodies and people of all different types. Because I
feel like we make gains and then we, you know,
take two steps backwards, and it's very frustrating, isn't it.
It is very frustrating. You know, in feminist movements, there's
just a constant backlash, right Like women start to gain power,
(26:16):
of women start to edge towards equality, and there's some
kind of movement that is designed to push us back again.
I feel like right now there's this current kind of
craze for super thin bodies again, and I'm just like,
oh God, really, like you know, everyone's doing oh zemperic
or whatever it's called, and right it's like, are we
(26:37):
not past this? I guess not, Like like it's it's
just going to keep going in waves and I just
want to shake people and be like, this is designed
to make you waste your time on this, This is
designed to take your power away. You want to be
thinking about you your life, What do you want to
do with your life, Who do you want to be
for your kids? Who do you want to be for
(26:58):
the other women in the world. Like it just feels
like such a waste of time to me. And yet
and yet it keeps copying up with this. Adrian rich
tweet that in the Last of Us you were looking
to Life of Luxury and not Linda Hamilton enough, and
you had such a great response a thing that I
(27:21):
will always push back on as this idea that people
with curvier bodies, bigger bodies are greedian, lazy. Yes, the
life of luxury. Yeah, so that was the thing I
think that really I was like, you know what, hang
on a minute, I know how I live. I know
that I'm a healthy person, and I don't like that,
(27:42):
and I just, you know, I just wanted to make
a point first of all, to show I was doing.
It's a post apocalyptic scenario with mushroom zombies, like anything's possible, right,
So I just I just have an issue with things
that are just misogynistic and just hateful for no reason
because and loaded and loaded, Yeah, I'm going to I'm
(28:06):
not going to push back on everything, because it would
be all I would all I spent my day doing.
Because I get a lot of people writing to me
telling me how they feel about my body. That must
be so exhausting. Why do you even read it? I
don't know, Because I like Twitter. I like reading film
critics honestly, Like I could just have a feed that's
(28:26):
just the critics I like. But I don't know. I
do think about this, and sometimes I do. Sometimes I
just like, put my phone down. I have a four
year old. I want to hang out with my child
if I'm not working. I don't want to be thrust
into a pool of self loathing because of what some
idiot on the internet said to me. And you have
a little girl, now, Yeah, and so I'm sure you
(28:49):
think about this and how she'll move in the world
and feel comfortable with who she is, because it does
trickle down to especially girls at a very young age,
this pressure to look and be a certain way. I'm
sure that's something that's probably in the back of your
(29:10):
mind a bit as you race this beautiful daughter. Oh
my gosh, it's in the forefront of my mind. I
It's also been another good listen for me because I
realize how often throughout a day I nitpick myself, and
I've given myself the challenge to never criticize myself in
front of her. So, you know, every time she was
(29:32):
cuddling me when she was little, I'd be like, isn't
mummy's tummy nice and soft? You know? And she'd be like,
you're so soft, Mama. She just thinks I'm the most
beautiful person she's ever seen, and I don't want her
to think otherwise. She doesn't know the word fat. She's
never said anything negative about somebody's appearance. She doesn't understand
that concept. So as long as I can protect her
(29:54):
from that, I know I'm not going to be able
to do it forever, but I'm going to try, and
I'll so praising her for her value when it doesn't
have anything to do with her appearance. All the time.
The thing that is most important to her is that
she's kind, and she's so kind, and the thing that's
most important to her is that other people are kind.
(30:16):
So she's very special. She's such a good little person.
And it sounds like you're a wonderful mom, but also
that your husband, Jason is a wonderful dad. Oh, I
got so lucky. First of all, you know, of course,
I always think of John Ritter, who was so beloved
and died far too young. Yeah, and Jason sounds like
(30:41):
an amazing human being. He's very much a co parent, very,
which is wonderful. I also really appreciate it, Melanie, how
you thank your nanny when you want a Critic's Choice
awards saying she is the most important person, because I
think the people who help us take hair of the
most important thing in our lives are so often not
(31:05):
appreciated or celebrated. Absolutely, it's the hardest job in the world.
She's amazing, and Jason is such a good dad and
such a good partner. You're very lucky. I'm so lucky,
Like you genuinely. He's also really sacrificed for me to
have this moment in my career. Like today, I had
(31:25):
to get ready for a day of press, and he
got up, he got her off to school, did the lunch,
put her here in little pigtails. My husband, when I
was doing the Today Show, would get up early, obviously
take our daughter to preschool and she'd have a real
rats nest and she'd have to comb it and put
it in a pony tail. And those are such sweet moments.
(31:50):
I think it's so sweet. It's so sweet. By the way,
I should say how lucky he is to have you,
because I know sometimes he tweets these wonderful words of
praise for you. The good news is he's not just
doing that on Twitter. He's doing that at home no
matter what. Like I can be in the rastiest, most
(32:11):
disgusting pair of sweat pants and he'll be like, you
look gorgeous, just like, oh my gosh, I don't. My
husband used to say to me, you know, I think
you look prettier without makeup. Oh that's sweet. I mean,
who says that. Yeah, my current husband. I haven't heard
(32:31):
him say that. I probably need to talk to him
about that. I know we're almost out of time, but
what are you excited about? And so you have yellow
jackets on the horizon. I would love to do a play.
There's so many things, but most of all right now,
(32:51):
I just want to hang out with my child and
do lots of cuddles and take her to soccer practice.
And I feel like you've been on such a journey
of self acceptance and self appreciation. Any advice for women
who might feel they're less than or not good enough,
(33:12):
or not than enough, or not pretty enough, or not
successful enough and all those enough that seemed to haunt
us on a daily basis. I mean, I just look
back on my life and I think about you know,
when I was nineteen, I did a movie in the
South of France and I wouldn't eat anything. I wouldn't
(33:32):
eat like I never went out for pasta. I never
had a delicious French meal. There's so much of life
that I missed out on because I was trying to
fit into something that I was never going to be.
And you know, we have one life. Probably I don't know,
but just you're going to look back and regret those
(33:52):
times in your life that you didn't fully get to
live because you were so worried about what do you
look like? I look back and I think like, oh,
why didn't I just put a swimsuit on? Now I
wear a swimsuit all the time. I don't care. I'm
just like, sure, you know I do. Also another thing,
I don't want my daughter to see me feeling self
conscious about having a swimsuit on. Like a body's just
(34:13):
a body. So just as soon as you can try
to let go and try to be fully prisoned in
your life, do it, because it's just not worth it.
Those are great words of wisdom. I hope a lot
of people take them to heart. Melanie, You're so wonderful
and I think you know you you. I think you
(34:35):
are one of the nicest or the nicest person in Hollywood.
So thank you. That's very sweet. I think my husband does.
But thank you so much. Thanks for listening everyone. If
you have a question for me or want to share
your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world reach out.
(34:57):
You can leave a short message at six O nine
five one two five five h five, or you can
send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to
hear from you. Next question is a production of iHeartMedia
and Katie Currechmedia. The executive producers are Me, Katie Curich,
and Courtney Litz. Our supervising producer is Marcy Thompson. Our
(35:19):
producers are Adriana Fasio and Catherine Law. Our audio engineer
is Matt Russell, who also composed our theme music. For
more information about today's episode, or to sign up for
my newsletter, wake Up Call, go to the description in
the podcast app, or visit us at Katiecurrek dot com.
You can also find me on Instagram and all my
(35:39):
social media channels. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows,
Host
Katie Couric
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