New Zealand actress Melanie Lynskey has candidly recalled the body-shaming she and other actresses faced while filming the 2000 movie Coyote Ugly.
“All the girls had this regimen they had to go on. It was ridiculous,” the actress told The Hollywood Reporter. “I was already starving myself and as thin as I could possibly be for this body, and I was still a [size] four [Australian size eight].”
Lynskey, now 45, played Gloria, a woman who was the best friend of actress Piper Perabo’s lead character, Violet, in the movie.
Now the New Zealand actress has said she faced harsh criticism from the original costume designer, makeup artist and others while she was filming, new york post reports.
“There were already people putting a lot of Spanx on me in wardrobe fittings and being very disappointed when they saw me, the costume designer being like, ‘Nobody told me there would be girls like you,’” Lynskey said.
“Really intense feedback about my physicality, my body, people doing my makeup and being like, ‘I’m just going to help you out by giving you a bit more of a jawline and stuff.’ Just the feedback was constantly like, ‘You’re not beautiful. You’re not beautiful.’”
Lynskey later clarified that the costume designer credited on the movie was not the person she was referring to in her comments.
“The costume designer who initially worked on Coyote Ugly left for some reason, and a lovely kind woman named Marlene Stewart took over and she was AWESOME,” Lynskey tweeted on Wednesday.
“The first person was mean, the person credited was not,” she wrote. “And my answer was kind of a jumble – I had experiences with makeup artists offering to help my face look better but that did not happen on Coyote Ugly. The hair and makeup team were amazing and so kind and among the best I’ve ever worked with.”
But the body-shaming did not stop in the early 2000s.
In January, the Heavenly Creatures actress revealed that she faced a similar situation with a crew member while filming Showtime’s yellowjackets recently.
“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,’” she told rolling stone.
The actress’ co-star Juliette Lewis found out about the interaction and wrote a letter to production on Lynskey’s behalf.
“I want women to be able to watch [Yellowjackets] and be like, ‘Wow, she looks like me and nobody’s saying she’s the fat one.’ That representation is important,” Lynskey concluded.
This story originally appeared on New York Post and was reproduced with permission
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