Years active: 1994 - present (started around 18 years old; 30 years in the business)
Tattoos: Left shoulder
Piercings: None
Instagram follower count: 429k (as of December 2024)
About Melanie Lynskey
Melanie Lynskey (born 16 May 1977) is a New Zealand actress best known for playing Charlie Harper's neighbor Rose on Two and a Half Men, and a range of characters in films such as Win Win, Up in the Air, The Informant!, Away We Go, Flags of Our Fathers, Shattered Glass, Sweet Home Alabama, Ever After and Heavenly Creatures.
Lynskey was born in New Plymouth, New Zealand. She attended New Plymouth Girls' High School.
In 1993, at the age of 16, Lynskey won her first professional acting role as Pauline Parker in the Peter Jackson film Heavenly Creatures, based on the 1954 Parker-Hulme murder, opposite Kate Winslet. Over 500 young actors auditioned for the role before Lynskey was cast with Jackson recalling "we knew if we cast an intelligent person, then they were going to hit it. Melanie's also very enigmatic. So what we were looking for was an actress who has that kind of aspect to her...where you can film somebody sitting in a room, doing nothing, and they're still fascinating to watch. We found that in Mel."
The film was released to critical acclaim in 1994 with Richard Corliss of TIME magazine describing her performance as "perfect, fearless in embodying teenage hysteria". Heavenly Creatures won Jackson and partner Fran Walsh a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and is now considered a cult film. Lynskey was named Best Actress at the New Zealand Film and TV Awards in 1995 for her performance.
After release of the film, Lynskey completed high school and began studying at the Victoria University of Wellington. During that time she made a brief appearance as a police deputy in Jackson's next film, The Frighteners. Her next major film appearance was as Jacqueline de Ghent in the 20th Century Fox production Ever After, opposite Drew Barrymore and Anjelica Huston, which was quickly followed by roles in Detroit Rock City, But I'm a Cheerleader, The Cherry Orchard (an adaptation of the Anton Chekhov play) and the Jerry Bruckheimer produced Coyote Ugly, where she took on a New Jersey accent.
In 2002, she played her first television role in the Stephen King mini series Rose Red. She then appeared alongside Katie Holmes in Abandon and Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama, and guest starred twice on The Shield.
