After debuting at 17, the actress felt lost in the industry.
It took years to find her way out of the wilderness.
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Lynskey, dark-haired, pale, shy, and a little bit goth, looked and felt the part.
Like her character, she wanted to get out of this town, too.
I was like, dont be ridiculous, she recalls.
It introduced Winslet to the world and established Jackson as a filmmaker to watch.
For Lynskey, the movie came and went.
Slowly, that has changed.
(Kahi is in her own play kitchen making a stew out of plastic bananas and crabs.)
My number one thing is that I dont want my daughter to question herself, she continues.
Its important to me that she knows who she is and she likes who she is.
What was growing up in New Plymouth like?New Plymouth has always been very beautiful.
Its on the coast.
Theres a huge mountain.
But its quite isolated.
They almost didnt go there when they were casting forHeavenly Creaturesbecause it was such an annoying drive.
And theres nothing by it.
It was quite quiet growing up.
I knew a lot of depressed kids, and there were suicides.
It felt like it was the suicide capital of New Zealand for a while?
I was kind of a goth.
I liked how it looked.
But I wasnt that depressed or anything.
I just dyed my hair black and I wore lacy black things.
They listened toSkinny Puppyand stuff I had a harder time with.
We would hang out with these boys, and they had so many opinions about music.
They would just sit there talking, and wed sit there with our little glasses of wine.
I said, I hate this song.
They were like, Well, this songs a masterpiece.
I was like, Its just not.
What song was it?I feel bad saying it, because its not a band thats successful anymore.
They didnt want to just hand the script out to people or explain what they were doing.
I mean, it was so intimidating.
Do you feel like that was mean?No, I dont think he was trying to be mean.
Hed seen this improvised thing Id done in the lunchroom.
They werent very far out from shooting he just wanted to show me what the stakes are.
I had one day to do this audition.
He was also excited.
Like, hed found Kate Winslet, youre gonna be excited!
Did your parents have any objections to the material?No.
Nobody was with me when we were shooting.
I was there by myself.
I had an apartment, and I was working adult hours.
I dont remember anyone being like, Oh, shes gotta get off the clock.
SAG rules did not apply.No, I dont think any rules applied.
But Im the oldest of five.
So there was a lot going on.
We were like,mmm, delicious.
Was there something about the darkness of the material that attracted you?So much.
It felt like magic.
I remember the night shoots.
Seeing everybody coming together to make this thing happen.
It felt huge to me.
Did your relationship with Kate mimic your characters?It was very sisterly.
She was a big sister.
Sometimes she would come on days when she wasnt working to be an extra coach for me.
Sometimes it was really lovely, and sometimes I was like, Im supposed to be missing you.
I dont want to see you in the corner of my eye.
But it was really sweet.
When we were shooting the murder scene, we slept over with each over every night.
Usually we would go home and shake it off.
But we stayed a bit crazy for three days and didnt really come out of it.
Even when she left, we talked on the phone every other week.
For a while, she was living at Emma Thompsons, and I would call.
Emma Thompson would pick up.
Id say, Hello, its Mel.
Shed say, Oh, hi Nell.
She always thought I was saying Nell.
I didnt correct her, its Emma Thompson.
But yeah, we stayed very close for a long time.
And do you speak now, or…Its not like we dont speak.
But we have not been in touch.
Its just very hard to be so famous, like… she got very, very busy.
I was in Los Angeles, and one time she came and we didnt see each other.
And then I stopped knowing if she was in Los Angeles.
It just dropped off.
What happened afterHeavenly Creaturespremiered?Everybody was very careful that I didnt get carried away.
Whos everyone?The producers, Peter, and his wife.
People did not want to be responsible for ruining my life.
Its difficult in New Zealand.
The premiere at the Venice Film Festival was a really amazing night.
Kate and I were very emotional.
It felt crazy to have aresponse like that.People were so into the movie and very kind to us.
Harvey Weinstein was so excited to see Kate.
He introduced her to people, like,This is the next big thing.
To me he was just like, Hi.
It was so dismissive.
I was like,I think I did a bad job.
Im not the kind of person these people are looking for.
The movie came out.
I did not take naturally to doing press.
I wanted to have a conversation with people, and thats not really how it works.
I was paired with somebody who is very confident and good at that stuff.
She was getting scripts, she was getting movie offers; it was such an exciting thing to see.
Cause we made this little amount of money for the movie like 20,000 New Zealand dollars.
I said, Im keeping this money forever.
This may never happen again.
She said, More moneys going to come in.
More jobs are going to happen.
And she was right.
But after Venice, there was nothing.
No, Would you be interested in this part, or Im an agent who wants to represent you.
I kept getting reminded I was not the things you needed to be.
What were those things?Thin, confident, pretty.
There was a certain pleasant energy they wanted people to have.
And I wasnt successful doing that.
He tried to stop me from monitoring my own eating and talked to me about how thin I was.
Of course, in my mind, I thought he was nuts.
Id never had anybody care that much.
Like early internet anorexic-inspo forums.Yeah.
I had eating issues from the age of 12.
When we were young teenagers, like 13, my friend and I used to go to the library.
It was very hard to get magazines in New Plymouth.
But they would have internationalVogue.
We would go there and rip out pages of the magazines of the skinniest, most beautiful women.
They were all over my room.
I thought you were supposed to have a gap between your thighs.
I became obsessed with that.
It was hard for her to look at my body objectively.
I think she just saw what she saw in herself.
Was his quasi-intervention helpful?It changed my life.
I stopped throwing up, mostly.
It took a while.
But that was a big one.
I was never bingey.
I never had an issue attracting anybody.
I was always very popular, as my dad called it.
I wasnt sitting around on a Friday like,Nobody wants me.
But in my professional life, I was viewed a particular way.
Susan Smith called me in New Zealand and said she wanted to represent me.
She started to send me things.
She asked me to make a self-tape.
I didnt know what that meant, and I was too scared to ask.
So I made a tape with my little brother forThe Craft.
That was the first audition I did.
I put a lamp under my face because I thought it would give me the most light.
It looked so crazy.
Susan could not stop laughing when she got it.
She was in hysterics.
So the quality of my tapes improved tremendously.
I didnt get it, butit was a big confidence boost.
How much has money been a part of your decision-making?Not very much.
This is the first time ever in my career Ive made an okay amount of money.
Like in actor terms.
People think actors are millionaires, but its not the case.
But Ive been comfortable and fine.
I put a down payment on a house when I was 27.
I had enough money to do that, which was wonderful.
I never spent money I didnt have.
Ive never had fancy cars or other homes.
I feel grateful Ive been able to pay my bills.
TV stuff, especially.
Its hard to say no to guaranteed financial freedom, but I always did.
It was something internally, where I was like,Ugh, I feel too weird about it.
You were a regular on the show for two seasons before switching to guest stints.
I had no money.
I was with an agency that didnt seem very excited about me.
They were sending me out for everything.
It didnt feel like there was somebody shaping a career.
So I went out for every single pilot.
Also it was nice to be getting a paycheck.
It wasnt huge; it was literally the least they could possibly pay me, according to SAG.
I did one season, and I thought,Oh, this is not for me.
It felt very hard knowing that most of my year was gonna be this.
I wasnt in every episode, but I couldnt do any other work.
The show was a huge hit, and he just said, kindly dont.
You have this story line and that story line coming up next season.
He really felt excited.
Then the next season happened all of the story lines happened in one episode!
Around that time, I sawBrokeback Mountain.
Im not in a conversation around movies like this.
Im not doing things I want to do.I said I needed to be able to do other things.
And they really tried to talk me out of it.
Finally, we came to an agreement where I could come and go.
A couple of people were like,You could be a millionaire.I get it.
Were going into the third season, and thats the time you could ask for a raise.
But it didnt matter.
Around that time, I didShattered Glass.I loved that movie.
I had a tiny part.
I was with all these great actors, and I believed in the story.
And then a lot of chubby friends.
I hate that these roles exist.
I think its damaging.
AfterTwo and a Half Men,they would still send me out on a lot of TV things.
It was confusing to me.
Wouldnt I have just stayed onTwo and a Half Menand eventually made a ton of money?
I felt like nobody was paying attention.
Did you find a new agent?Yeah.
She thinks youre great.
It had been a long time since I felt like anybody else thought I was great.
It was some period movie.
That was when I called Emily and said, Okay, Im going to talk to some other people.
Rhonda was very passionate about me.
My initial meeting with her was probably like, Im sorry.
You dont want to do this.
I was really down on myself.
But she was excited, and I took a leap of faith.
That was very hard for me.
People want you to come and audition.
I was like, Oh, I didnt know that.
She said, I just have to make a call.
So she started making calls and I started to audition for things I liked.
It was sweet, quirky.
She was sexy, confident, and smart.
I felt seen in a way I had not been before.
I wrote Mike Newell a thank-you letter when I didnt get the part.
I dont know if he ever got it.
But I said, Thank you for taking time and seeing me.
It was a big moment where I realized that maybe I dont have to be pigeonholed.
Maybe more things are possible.
I always wondered if maybe I was a little bit gay.
It was a gray area.
I made out with my girlfriends all the time.
It was never a weird thing.
And you werent?No, it was like the tenth time Id kissed a girl.
Im like,Ive done this every weekend.
It wasnt necessarily a lesbian relationship.
I always wondered if it wasnt possible to explore it further.
It was just such a different time 1950s, New Zealand the concept of that wouldve been so outlandish.
I wondered what the two of them felt about those intimate moments they had.
Did they feel like it was sexual?
In the movie, we werent playing like it was a sexual thing.
It was a swoony moment when they got caught up in the drama and the romance of the friendship.
I read an interview where Kate said somebody made aweird commentwhen we were filming, which I dont remember.
Do you work on sets with intimacy coordinators now?Just onYellowjackets.
Its good for everybody to talk about what their expectations are.
Sometimes men can be more uncomfortable than women.
Its good for men to be able to have that conversation.
Ill go with you if you want someone to go with you.
I am here for any uncomfortable conversation.
Ill be your voice.
I was really young and far away from home onEver After.
She was a dream for a young actor.
Just someone who checks in and sees how youre doing.
She taught me so much about lighting and stuff I still dont know.
It got really crazy.
Can you tell me about her?She is the coolest person in the world.
Shes only with us when were on location in Canada.
She lives in Toronto.
I met her duringMrs.
I didnt always have a nanny.
It had just been me and Jason since Kahi was born.
I thought I could hire babysitters, like an idiot.
The business were in, the hours are so long and the days are so crazy.
I was using an agency on days when I was working.
I would say, I need a nanny from 10 a.m to whatever.
And it was impossible.
Id be at work, and people would be like, So, I need to leave at eight.
Or, Oh, can I ask for a selfie with Cate Blanchett?
I was like, Im so sorry, but you cant.
Shes at work right now.
At a certain point, Celli was assigned to me.
The first day she was with me, we were doing a scene in a park.
She was supposed to bring Kahi, and I hadnt seen her.
It looked like paradise.
She had made it as easy as possible just quietly doing the exact right thing.
Kahi knew the whole alphabet when she was 16 months old because of Celli.
This is going to make me cry.
So I just hired her for the whole time.
Production got her a room in the hotel, which was the Four Seasons in Toronto.
I was like,If Im not working, youre not working.
Go to the spa.
You were like,Shes the one.Shes the one!
America,Sarah Paulson got really intense with me.
She was like, you better do whatever it takes.
Bring Celli home with you.
I said, I cant.
She has a life.
She has quite a lot going on.
She said, Do whatever it takes.
Ive never seen you so relaxed.
Ive never seen you like this.
Cause shed just seen me losing my mind breastfeeding and trying to go back to work.
I breastfed her for two years.
Americawrapped, you told your agent you didnt want to do …Anything, yeah.
It was so hard.
I felt like a bad mother.
I felt like a bad actor.
I did not have a lot of support on that job, unfortunately.
There were people scheduling, and the schedule would change.
And I was like, I dont have someone to look after my child.
America, I had half a trailer, and we were all in there together.
Sometimes it was Jason, a nanny, a baby.
And Id have to be preparing.
One day, they brought in an extra AD to sit in the trailer with her.
You cant be free and concentrate when youre not sure that everythings okay.
Since then, my rules for working have been really intense.
What are they?I need to be able to have my family with me.
I need to know about the schedule.
I was like,Half the story line does not involve me?
Tell me more.You get one week on, one week off.
Are awards meaningful to you?Honestly, Im fiendish about watching award shows.
They make me so happy.
I love watching people give acceptance speeches.
And I think it is really meaningful.
It has not been a big part of my life.
I havent been nominated for very many things.
And then I havent been.
Im more comfortable expecting that things are not going to happen.
Is that the New Zealand in you?Yeah.
Its how we all operate.
Do you still feel very much like a New Zealander?
Or do you feel American?I love living here, but I dont feel very American.
When I first came here, it was such a culture shock with dating.
I didnt like it.
And then, in New Zealand, there is not as much of a hierarchy in the workplace.
Its more of a sense that everybodys in it together.
Youre all working toward a common goal.
Theres not this thing where the actors this precious being everybody has to tiptoe around.
As an actor, sometimes people attempt to treat me in a way that makes me very uncomfortable.
Like Im this delicate thing:What do you need?
What do you need?
I didnt know how to go up to a group of people and be confident and comfortable.
There was so much of that.
She was somebody who was struggling and just didnt have the help she needed.
The weirdest part about the trial was that the victim was basically put on trial.
Person after person came to the witness stand and said, Oh, she was kind of weird.
Candy is so wonderful.
It became a popularity contest.
Did having a child change how you thought about playing Betty?I think so.
Because I really understand the thought of something happening to you or your child.
You feel like your hearts getting ripped out.
Bettys 11-month-old baby was in the house when she was murdered.
It feels very accessible.
How did you name your child Kahi?Kahikatea is her full name.
Kahikatea is a tree, and the roots find each other and help each other grow.
Its a very strong name.
She had a tough birth.
She wasnt breathing when she was born.
We were like, Thats it.
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