Melanie Lynskey learned a thing or two from her best friend, Natasha Lyonne — and used it to get one of her most memorable roles.
The “Yellowjackets” actor was honored with the Precious Gem Award at the 42nd annual Miami Film Festival on Saturday. During a career retrospective after accepting the award, she opened up about her many memorable roles, including that of Gloria in “Coyote Ugly.”
“Everybody wanted to be in that movie. It was the hot script of the moment, and I remember reading it. There were so many different drafts of it. And the draft that I got, I think was a pass that was done by Kevin Smith. It was quite dark,” she said during the Q&A. “And I was like, ‘Oh, this is fun.’ I basically went into the audition room and did kind of an impression of Natasha Lyonne.”
At the time, Lynskey told the team she didn’t have money for a dialect coach — but when she landed the role, they provided one. Unfortunately, she ended up having to do that New Jersey accent all on her own.
“There was a sound problem and none of my lines recorded, and I had to re-record every single line I did in that movie, and they did not get me a dialect coach for when I had to re-record all the lines,” she said with a laugh.
Lynskey also revealed she didn’t know how to drive before landing the part of Gloria. “I had to learn to drive for ‘Coyote Ugly,’” she said. “I didn’t lie. Nobody asked me! But then I was like, ‘Oh, by the way, I don’t know how to drive.’ They said, ‘You’re 21.’”
Melanie Lynskey and Angus T. Jones
©CBS/Courtesy Everett Collection
Three years after “Coyote Ugly,” Lynskey landed the role of Rose in “Two and a Half Men.” Excited to be on an American sitcom, she’d gone on to do appear in a whopping 63 episodes.
“I went and did something kind of strange in the audition, and they were super into it,” Lynskey recalled. “She was written as being quite sexy and threatening. And I was like, what if she just honestly doesn’t know there’s a problem,? Like, she’s so sweet and you’d meet her in the grocery store and [say,] ‘She’s adorable.’ And she’s like, ‘I’ll cut you into pieces.’?”
The writers liked her take, and during Season 1, the guest star role quickly turned into a series regular.
“Honestly, it was a hard decision, because it was not what I was expecting. I had no money, and I liked everyone I worked with. I really, really liked them, and it was so fun,” she said.
But it was impossible to take any other jobs. By Season 5, she was able to get out of her contract. “That was why I became recurring, so I could come and go. People were renegotiating to get raises, and I was like, how about I renegotiate for less money? Literally, someone was like, you could become a millionaire. I was like, No, I get it. I do. That sounds great, but I also saw the path that was going on… It was not, financially, the greatest choice, but for my life, it was the best choice.”
