Melanie Lynskey on 'crazy' Mafia game nights with The Last of Us creator and playing 'a war criminal'
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Warning: This article contains spoilers from The Last of Us season 1, episode 4.
Yellowjackets star Melanie Lynskey and TV producer Craig Mazin go way back, much further than when they worked together on HBO's The Last of Us.
"We have a very, very fun relationship," the Kiwi actress tells EW of Mazin, who heads up The Last of Us with Neil Druckmann. "At the very beginning of the pandemic, he and I would co-host Mafia games together on Zoom, and they got so elaborate and so crazy."
How crazy? "We decided that we would do a game where everybody was a special character. So everybody had a superpower and we were playing with, like, 26 people on Zoom," she recalls. "We had Slack channels going for every single special character where he and I were communicating with people."
Lynskey was already a fan of Mazin's work on the Emmy-winning Chernobyl miniseries, but these Mafia game nights reaffirmed that he would be fun to work with. "I knew I could trust him to be meticulous," she says.
Liane Hentscher/HBO Melanie Lynskey's Kathleen is the leader of a revolutionary movement in Kansas City in 'The Last of Us.'
When Mazin approached Lynskey to play Kathleen on The Last of Us, a character created specifically for the show with roots in the 2013 video game, she was eager to take on the role. Lynskey describes Kathleen as a reluctant "war criminal." She's the sister of the former leader of a resistance movement in Kansas City, but it was only after her brother's death that she took over and toppled the military presence in the area.
"Imagine growing up as the sibling of Jesus and being like, 'My brother's the greatest human being. He's leading the world. He's the kindest, most decent person. I don't think I'm that great of a person. I don't really need to be anything in particular because I have this person by my side,'" Lynskey explains. "And then somebody brutally kills him and it's so unfair. Who are you after that?"
Lynskey speaks more with EW about her friendship with Mazin, their elaborate Mafia game nights, and playing a villain many people might overlook.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I was reading your tweets recently and cackling to myself. I just wanna say, on behalf of the gay community, I'm really happy that you're pushing the homosexual agenda. [Lynskey responded on Twitter after someone accused her of "more homosexual agenda pushing" in The Last of Us.]
MELANIE LYNSKEY: Thank you. Oh my God. It was the funniest thing I've ever seen. This man just seeing my face and being like, "More pushing of the homosexual agenda." I honestly felt so flattered.
You definitely have a lot of fans in the gay community. Is that a badge that you wear proudly?
Oh my God, yes. So much. It's been a badge that I've worn proudly forever. It's just always been a big part of my own community and my life.
I was re-watching The Intervention [Lynskey's 2016 dramedy], which was such an interesting pairing with The Last of Us.
Very different. Yeah.
Liane Hentscher/HBO Melanie Lynskey's Kathleen interrogates a collaborator in 'The Last of Us.'
When this opportunity came your way for The Last of Us, did it feel like a chance to do something that you'd never done before?
It really did. I know Craig Mazin personally, and I'm just such a fan of who he is as a human being. We have a very, very fun relationship. At the very beginning of the pandemic, he and I would co-host Mafia games together on Zoom, and they got so elaborate and so crazy. It sounds so silly, but even in seeing how he would plan a Mafia game and deal with everybody's characters and be a moderator... I was such a fan of his writing. Obviously, Chernobyl's like one of the greatest things ever, but I knew that I liked working with him from our Mafia games. For me, that's such a big part of it, enjoying the time you spend with somebody. So I knew that I would have fun with Craig. I knew I could trust him to be meticulous. I read the scripts and I was like, 'These are great.' I mean, surprise, surprise, it's Craig Mazin. I really didn't hesitate. I was so excited about it.
Can you describe one of the more outlandish Mafia games you played?
We got crazy. At a certain point I think Craig and I were challenging ourselves 'cause we were co-moderating and we decided that we would do a game where everybody was a special character. So everybody had a superpower and we were playing with like 26 people on Zoom. We had Slack channels going for every single special character where he and I were communicating with people. People would vote in the night in the Mafia game. We'd have to send someone a message on Slack and be like, 'You were killed.' 'Check to see if one of the other super people had saved them with their special power.' 'Somebody saved you.' It got so complicated, and he was so on top of it and funny the whole time. I think one of his most amazing skills as a writer is, in the middle of immense stress, he knows how to bring the humanity into a scene and the humor, even when things are at the very height. He would do that a lot in Mafia. You would have to announce that somebody was brutally murdered in the night and he would announce it in the funniest way possible with the most amount of dramatic tension. It was a very fun time. I miss it. I mean, I don't miss the early days of the pandemic, but yeah.
Did Craig maintain that level of humor on The Last of Us?
He's just such a funny person. He's funny and he's meticulous. Those are the two. He pays attention to everything. I remember one day being in a conversation with him and his eyes kind of drifted up and I was like, "What is he doing?" There was an exit sign that didn't look like it had been dirty for the required amount of time. Someone had to come in and dirty it more. He's really looking at everything. I don't even know if that would've been in the frame. It was a little tiny thing, but he's just paying attention to everything.
Kathleen, as a character, is someone even people who have played the games have never met before. Do you remember the first nuggets of information Craig gave you that ended up helping you shape this performance?
He said to me, "I hope you're not offended, but I would love for you to play a war criminal." I said, "Ugh, I don't know." He was like, "I felt like that would be your reaction. Let me tell you a bit more." He told me that her brother was basically Jesus. Like, imagine growing up as the sibling of Jesus and being like, "My brother's the greatest human being. He's leading the world. He's the kindest, most decent person. I don't think I'm that great of a person. I don't really need to be anything in particular because I have this person by my side." And then somebody brutally kills him and it's so unfair. Who are you after that? You are forced to step into a role that you never asked for and you don't think you're very good at. The thing I found very interesting about her is, when she did step into the role, she didn't have a lot of guilt about doing bad things, whereas her brother did. She found out that she was quite heartless and so she was able to be pretty effective in a way that he maybe wasn't because she didn't care about people. That's a very interesting dynamic.
Liane Hentscher/HBO Melanie Lynskey's Kathleen in 'The Last of Us'
I know Craig's scripts are usually very detailed. How much of those character details were explicitly laid out in the script and how much did you bring to the performance?
I was gonna say I didn't bring anything. [Laughs] That's not the right way to put it. There was so much detail in the script. I can't remember exactly, but I do feel like there was something about her being a person that you might dismiss, that you might not be necessarily afraid of until you suddenly realize, "Oh shit! This is somebody who I'm supposed to be the most afraid of." I wanted her to be kind of gentle. I wanted her to be soft spoken and delicate in the way she looked around. I wanted her to feel like a sweet person, and then to have a surprising capacity for violence. I thought the difference between how she carries herself and how she speaks and the things she's doing would be interesting.
Is it fun for you to be a villain after playing so many good people for years?
It is. It is really fun. I would do something horrible, like one time I did some scene where [Kathleen] was like, "Kids die every day" or something like that. I was like, "It's just my vendetta." Craig and I would always say "my vendetta" with a New Zealand accent.
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