Melanie Lynskey made a bone-chilling debut on The Last of Us during the Feb. 5 episode, which introduced her villain, Kathleen Coghlan. While the Yellowjackets star earned near-unanimous praise for her performance, model Adrienne Curry felt Lynskey was miscast. Curry publicly body-shamed Lynskey, comparing her negatively to Terminator star Linda Hamilton and stood by her position after Lynskey responded.
“Her body says ‘life of luxury’… not post-apocalyptic warlord,” Curry wrote. “Where is Linda Hamilton when you need her?” Curry later deleted the post, but not before Lynskey caught it. “Firstly – this is a photo from my cover shoot for InStyle magazine, not a still from HBO’s The Last Of Us,” Lynskey wrote. “And I’m playing a person who meticulously planned & executed an overthrow of FEDRA. I am supposed to be SMART, ma’am. I don’t need to be muscly. That’s what henchmen are for.”
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In a follow-up thread, Lynskey praised The Last of Us creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin for envisioning a post-apocalyptic world where people begin listening to the person with the “best ideas” instead of the “coolest or the toughest” person. The former Two and a Half Men star said she understood why people were upset with her casting in the role, but that makes playing Kathleen more thrilling as an actor. Kathleen is an original character who was not featured in The Last of Us video games.
“I understand that some people are mad that I’m not the typical casting for this role,” Lynskey tweeted. “That’s thrilling to me. Other than the moments after action is called, when you feel like you’re actually in someone else’s body, the most exciting part of my job is subverting expectations.”
Curry later stood by her tweets. “I am so over everything anymore. actors can’t allow people to not like their characters? I am DONE,” she wrote to one Twitter user who asked her to apologize. “We are not the things we pretend we are on a set or stage. It’s okay if someone doesn’t like ’em. It isn’t personal in the slightest.”
The former America’s Next Top Model contestant also accused Lynskey of cropping out another tweet about her “perfect hourglass fame being the most desirable to men. Seems quite manipulative. Also, she is NOT her character.” In another tweet, Curry insisted that “curvaceous babes aren’t a thing in post-apocalyptic scenarios… People are working hard and starving. This is a fictional character! Fiction!”
Lynskey has been vocal about the body shaming she has faced as an actress. In January 2022, she told Rolling Stone that her Yellowjackets co-stars wrote a letter to the producers after a staffer was overheard making negative comments about Lynskey’s weight. Lynskey also said she was pressured to lose weight when making Coyote Ugly in 2000.
