Melanie Lynskey has a conjurer\u2019s ability to mine the vulnerability of characters without sinking into sad-sack caricature. Whether as a troubled teenager in her stirring debut \u201cHeavenly Creatures,\u201d George Clooney\u2019s younger sister in \u201cUp in the Air,\u201d Matt Damon\u2019s wife in \u201cThe Informant!,\u201d a fresh-out-of-rehab mother in \u201cWin Win,\u201d or a recent divorcee working her way through a rebound romance with a much younger man in the underrated \u201cHello I Must Be Going,\u201d Lynskey always serves the story without ever blending into the scenery.<\/p>\n
Her latest film is \u201cHappy Christmas,\u201d from writer-director (and in this case co-star) Joe Swanberg. In it, the New Zealand-born actress gets to use her native accent, playing stay-at-home-mom and frustrated writer Kelly, wife to Swanberg\u2019s Jeff. When Jeff\u2019s younger sister Jenny (Anna Kendrick) comes to stay with them fresh off a recent break-up, it introduces some unexpected chaos into their lives.<\/p>\n
Swanberg had met with Lynskey for a part in \u201cDrinking Buddies,\u201d his previous film, that didn\u2019t end up working out. But he was struck by her talent and easygoing nature, and invited her collaboration on \u201cHappy Christmas.\u201d Swanberg\u2019s films flow from an outline, and typically make extensive use of improvisational exercises. Lynskey, it turns out, had a background that fit that approach hand-in-glove. \u201cI never went to drama school, but from high school, or really the age of nine, I did this drama class with a local teacher and it was almost completely improvised,\u201d recalls Lynskey. \u201cWe would put some scripted plays on, but it was really unusual, in that for most of it she would give us a scenario and we would improvise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abetting the feeling of commingled life and art is the fact that \u201cHappy Christmas\u201d shot in part at the home of Swanberg and his real-life wife, Kris, and co-stars their two-year-old toddler. And, yes, the tiki bar-styled basement in their Chicago home is the real deal \u2014 a product of the previous homeowner\u2019s decorating instincts. \u201cIn the movie he\u2019s showing Anna around and that\u2019s the tour that he gave me when I saw it,\u201d says Lynskey of Swanberg\u2019s house. \u201cEverything was there \u2014 the ducks were on the wall and the Tiki bar was in place. And it\u2019s an interesting thing, because I fell in love with a house when I was buying a home a couple years ago, and it was a similar type of thing, where it was someone who was an elderly single man, and the house was very well preserved. I was like, \u201cWell, I wouldn\u2019t want to change anything, but then I\u2019d feel like I was living in a museum.\u201d It was a weird feeling, and I didn\u2019t know quite what to do with it. But I think it\u2019s perfect at Joe and Kris\u2019 because it\u2019s just the basement \u2014 like, the rest of their house is their house, and they\u2019ve done stuff to it and it\u2019s a normal house. But then there\u2019s this secret. I would love that, if I just had a weird basement.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Swanberg\u2019s basement made quite an impression on Lynskey, she obviously made one on him as well, as she has a role in his next movie too, entitled \u201cDigging For Fire.\u201d \u201cI did one scene, there\u2019s all kinds of people in it,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m very curious about it. What our scene was going to be about completely changed on the day (of shooting). Joe\u2019s very collaborative. We started talking and he\u2019s like, \u2018Here\u2019s the idea I had,\u2019 and I was like, \u2018I don\u2019t like that, I don\u2019t want to have that be my one scene, where that\u2019s all I\u2019m doing.\u2019 And he was like, \u2018Okay, what do you want to do?\u2019 So my scene was with Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt, and he really let us create something interesting. It was fun. And it\u2019s really nice that he\u2019s so open to it, where he doesn\u2019t take offense at someone saying, \u2018I hate that idea.\u2019 We know each other so well now that I can be like, \u2018Ugh.\u2019 It becomes a compromise. I don\u2019t want him to lose his initial thing that he was hoping for. But he\u2019s so great about collaborating.\u201d<\/p>\n
NOTE:<\/b>\u00a0\u201cHappy Christmas\u201d opens today in theaters, and is also available across VOD platforms via Magnolia.<\/p>\n
![\"Melanie](\"http:\/\/www.shockya.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/Melanie-Lynskey.jpg\")
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