‘The Last of Us’ actress Melanie Lynskey pushes back at criticism over her casting
By Marianne Garvey, CNN
“The Last of Us” star Melanie Lynskey is responding to criticism over her casting in the hit HBO series.
Earlier this week, former reality star Adrianne Curry tweeted that she didn’t think Lynskey was a good fit the role, writing, “Her body says life of luxury…not post apocolyptic warlord.”
Lynskey had thoughts of her own, responding: “I am supposed to be SMART, ma’am. I don’t need to be muscly, That’s what henchmen are for.”
Lynskey plays a woman named Kathleen on the show, who leads a group of survivors who have overtaken FEDRA (Federal Disaster Response Agency) in Kansas City.
Along with her now deleted message, Curry had also posted a photo from a magazine photo shoot and not the show.
Lynskey wrote, “Firstly- this is a photo from my cover shoot for InStyle magazine, not a still from HBO’s ‘The Last Of Us. And I’m playing a person who meticulously planned & executed an overthrow of FEDRA.”
Lynskey, who also stars in “Yellowjackets,” thanked the “The Last of Us” series creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann for the character she plays.
“The thing that excited me most about doing #TheLastOfUs is that my casting suggested the possibility of a future in which people start listening to the person with the best ideas,” she wrote. “The organiser. The person who knows where everything is. The person who is doing the planning. The person who can multitask. The one who’s decisive.”
She continued: “I understand that some people are mad that I’m not the typical casting for this role. 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.”
Lynskey ended the thread by saying she has a vision for Kathleen.
“I wanted her to be feminine, and soft-voiced, and all the things that we’ve been told are ‘weak,'” she wrote.
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