Melanie Lynskey Talked About Body Shaming And Dieting While Making “Coyote Ugly”

Showtime’s teen cannibal show, Yellowjackets, is up for seven Emmys, including acting nominations for Melanie Lynskey and Christina Ricci. Recently, Melanie, Christina, Tawny Cypress and Juliette Lewis sat down for an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, and discussed the show and their long careers in the biz. Melanie talked about playing Piper Perabo’s “best friend from Jersey” in Coyote Ugly (2000), and reveals that the experience was full of body shaming and unhealthy diet regimens. Makes sense, cuz wasn’t Tyra Banks also in that?

In case your memory doesn’t go back that far, Coyote Ugly was about a bunch of hot girls who work at a sexy New York City table dancing bar. It was based on the real Coyote Ugly bar. Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert worked there and wrote about her experience in a 1997 GQ article. The film was based on the article and starred Piper, Tyra, Melanie, Maria Bello, Izabella Miko, Bridget Moynahan, and John Goodman as Piper’s dad. He probably didn’t have to go on any diet regimen. Here’s what Melanie says about her time working on the film, via The Hollywood Reporter:

LYNSKEY I started calling myself a character actor in interviews when I was really young because I think it was reclaiming the term or something. I think I just was like, “That’s what I am.” My agents had all that kind of intensity around it, too. I remember when I did Coyote Ugly —

RICCI Oh my God, you got a piece in that? I went up for that, and I didn’t get it.

CYPRESS I did too.

LYNSKEY I played the best friend from Jersey. But the scrutiny that was on Piper [Perabo], who’s one of the coolest, smartest women, just the way people were talking about her body, talking about her appearance, focusing on what she was eating. All the girls had this regimen they had to go on. It was ridiculous. I was already starving myself and as thin as I could possibly be for this body, and I was still a [size] four. That was 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.” 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.” In your early 20s, so much of it is about beauty, and how people respond to you, and do people want to fuck you? Do people think you’re their best friend? Even the best friend thing, I started to be like, “I don’t want to do that too many times.”

She was a size 4 and the costume designer saw her as plus-sized? Jesus Christ. Melanie has been open about her fucked up experiences in Hollywood as someone who wasn’t a natural size 0. Earlier this year, she told the Rolling Stone that a crew member on Yellowjackets actually asked her what she “planned to do” about her body, adding, “I’m sure the producers will get you a trainer.” She’s also talked about being compared to her Heavenly Creatures (1994) co-star Kate Winslet, and how it was hard being the “chubby dark-haired New Zealander” as an actress in the nineties.

Later in the Hollywood Reporter interview, Melanie and her co-stars are asked if they feel “at all protective of the younger actresses who play the younger versions of your characters?” Here’s their response:

LYNSKEY (Begins to cry.) So much. I feel very protective. At the beginning of production, I sent them all an email, and I just was like, “Whatever you need, if you need a voice, if you need someone to go to the producers for you, whatever you need,” and they were kind of like, “Cool. Thanks.” They’re fine.

CYPRESS Totally fine. Jas [Jasmin Savoy Brown] was a boss on set. She’s like, “This is how we’re doing my hair. This is what we’re doing.”

RICCI They’re very much of a different generation.

These kids today! Have you seen them on the TikTok? They’re so body positive and unapologetic and brave. Sometimes I forget that loving your body the way it is (or, at least, trying to) is only a very recent phenomenon. And then I recall being in high school in the early 2000s, weighing 145 pounds, and truly believing I was morbidly obese. Thanks a lot, Rachel Zoe (most things can be blamed on Rachel Zoe)!!

Pic: BauerGriffin/INSTARimages.com