Melanie Lynskey’s “Yellowjackets” co-stars have got her back.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, the New Zealand-born actress opened up about how fellow “Yellowjackets” stars Tawny Cypress, Christina Ricci and Juliette Lewis came to her support when she was fat-shamed by someone on the show’s production staff.
“They were asking me, ‘What do you plan to do? I’m sure the producers will get you a trainer. They’d love to help you with this,’” recalled Lynskey, who revealed that Lewis even wrote a letter to the show’s producers about the incident.
In the series, in which she plays one of the adult survivors when a plane carrying a female high school soccer team crashed in the wilderness, Lynskey’s character has an affair with a younger man, played by Peter Gadiot, and told the magazine that she’d seen online criticism from viewers who questioned whether he’d actually be attracted to her.
“I’m just like, ‘Wow, really? That’s where people’s heads are at, that the most important thing is being thin or young?’” Lynskey said.
“It was really important to me for [Shauna] to not ever comment on my body, to not have me putting a dress on and being like, ‘I wish I looked a bit better,’” Lynskey explained.
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“I did find it important that this character is just comfortable and sexual and not thinking or talking about it, because I want women to be able to to watch it and be like, ‘Wow, she looks like me and nobody’s saying she’s the fat one,’” she added. “That representation is important.”
