Melanie Lynskey Nudity in Togetherness
Excerpt of Melanie discussing upcoming HBO show and her nudity in it.You’re on the Duplass brothers’ HBO show, Togetherness, which will be on sometime next year. What’s your character like?
ML: Mark Duplass and I are married to each other, and his friend, who’s played by Steve Zissus, moves in with us. And then my sister, who’s played by Amanda Peet, also moves in with us. Mark and I are having marriage problems; I can’t stand the sight of him sexually, I love him in every other way. It’s just kind of about marriage, not really in crisis, but dealing with problems. And parenthood, again. We have little children again.
An HBO show like that is something that could run for five seasons.
ML: Oh my god, that would be so great. I’ve never been sadder to have anything end.
Why was that?
ML: It felt so creative. Everything about it was really good. And I loved the show. I’ve seen two episodes. I’ve seen the pilot, and I’ve seen the one that I’m full-frontally naked in.
Oh, you’re — wow!
ML: You didn’t see as much as I thought you would see. But you — there’s some stuff. But I kept hearing from people, “Oh, all the episodes are so good.” So I was like, “Please show me the one. I need to know what people are seeing of my body.”
And how was that?
ML: It was fine. I felt kind of good about it. It’s definitely not the kind of naked body you usually see. But there’s a part of that I feel weirdly kind of liberated about. I saw it and thought, This feels kind of nice for the world. Just a fleshy, fleshy lady lying there.
You don’t look fleshy. I feel weird.
ML: I am, though. You don’t see any muscles. But I was like, I kind of love that that’s what my body looks like. And that’s what is going to be on television. It just feels nice to be representing something. I’m prepared for the backlash of people saying, “I don’t need to see that!”
I don’t think that would be the backlash. I think it could be, “Why is everyone naked on HBO all the time?”
ML: I think it’s good for people to be naked.
Sorry, I meant naked women.
ML: Well, Mark is naked too.
Ah! Then they won’t say it.
ML: Everyone is naked! I think everyone is naked on our show at some point.
God. This is going to be a good show!
ML: Yeah!