Digital

Taranaki-raised actress Melanie Lynskey might have a leading role in the US thriller series Castle Rock but despite her long career in acting alongside many big-name performers, she still doesn’t feel like she’s made it. Sarah Nealon reports.

Since starring alongside Kate Winslet in Heavenly Creatures in the mid-90s, New Zealander Melanie Lynskey has forged an enviable career in Hollywood.

There was Two And A Half Men with Charlie Sheen, Up In The Air with George Clooney, and Sweet Home Alabama with Reese Witherspoon – to name just a few.

So it’s something of a surprise to hear her response when asked if there was a moment in her working life when she realised she’d made it.

“I’ve never really felt like I’ve made it,” says Lynskey, 41. “But I’ve felt very lucky. I mean I think maybe the first time I said ‘no’ to something, it was really good just because I had too much else going on. That was such an intense experience for me because you ask yourself a lot of questions like, ‘Who do I think I am?’ ”

For her latest role, Lynskey plays Molly, a mysterious real estate agent residing in the eerie fictional town of Castle Rock in the thriller series of the same name streaming on Lightbox.

It’s a role that has her working alongside Sissy Spacek (Carrie,

Bloodline), Andre Holland (The Knick) and Bill Skarsgard, the younger brother of Big Little Lies star Alexander Skarsgard.

The town of Castle Rock is the creation of author Stephen King and has been the setting for some of his works.

Hard-core fans may even recognise characters in the screen adaption from his past works. King, a prolific writer, is known for his suspense-filled novels in which people meet terrible fates.

Avid reader Lynskey was already well familiar with his writing when she took on the role of Molly.

“As a kid, I loved reading,” she says. “We used to go away and stay in this bach that my grandparents had in the (Marlborough) Sounds. My uncle had left all these books there and he was a huge Stephen King fan, so from the time I was eight – too young to be reading Stephen King – I started reading him. It was terrifying. He’s such a master storyteller.”

Lynskey, who grew up in Taranaki, is the oldest of five children. She has been living in the US for nearly 20 years and is engaged to actor Jason Ritter, the son of the late Jack Ritter, who starred in 8 Simple Rules and Three’s Company.

Each year, if her schedule permits, Lynskey returns to New Zealand to see her loved ones.

“My sort of rule is once a year but I didn’t come back last year because I was in Melbourne, but all my siblings came to visit me there so I got some good sibling time,” she says.

“But being (away from New Zealand) for 18 months was too long. I get very homesick.”

Lynskey had been in Melbourne playing a lawyer in the mini-series Sunshine,a crime drama about a group of South Sudanese Australians who play basketball.

The actress has a reputation for making interesting choices when it comes to her screen roles so you can’t help but wonder if she turns down a lot of work.

“It sounds awful,” she says. “I can’t really believe I’m in a position to say this but I do. I turn down a lot of things – especially during pilot season when all the new shows are being made. Because it’s a scary thing to sign on for something that is potentially seven years of your life and you don’t know who’s involved or what the storyline is going to be like.

“With things like Sunshine, first of all the story was so appealing to me because I feel like Australia needs to have a good conversation with itself about its race problem and I think that the show was really great at doing that.

“Castle Rock was really appealing because it was just one season and then they have a whole new cast of characters for season two. We all knew we were just there for the one season so it’s kind of nice to keep your options open.”

“It’s a scary thing to sign on for something that is potentially seven years of your life.” – Melanie Lynskey