Melanie Lynskey is opening up about why she initially turned down the audition for buffy the vampire slayer.
During a recent interview with Shut Up Evan: The BulletinMade before the SAG-AFTRA strike, the actress explained why at the time she did not feel ready to make the leap from film to television.
“It was kind of a visa issue, but not really,” he said. “I wasn’t sure about doing television at the time either. It was very early in my career. He had an old-school agent going, ‘Television? That’s for the oldies! and I was like, ‘I guess it’s not anymore. Certainly now things have really changed, but at the time I wasn’t really into it (TV).
Before the Sarah Michelle Gellar-directed series made its debut in 1997, Lynskey made her acting debut in the 1994 Peter Jackson film. heavenly creatures, along with Kate Winslet. Later, when the auditions began for buffy the vampire slayerLynskey recalled meeting with show creator Joss Whedon about the role of Willow Rosenberg.
“I don’t remember if it was an offer or if it was like, ‘Would you come read it?’ or whatever, but we kept in touch after that,” she said of their initial meeting with him. “And then I guess they were replacing the pilot person at a certain point and I had kept in touch with [Joss], and he said, ‘Now do you think you’d like to do it?’ And he had seen the pilot and was like, ‘Oh, this is good‘, and I kind of got my agent involved in it. And then, it turned into this whole ‘Okay, now you have to audition’ thing. So I auditioned.”
Although Lynskey ultimately decided to make the leap to television and audition for leukocyte, said that it ended up being a “complete process” and he did not get the role. But she couldn’t be more excited for the actress that she landed the role of Willow on the series that ran for seven seasons.
“Alyson Hannigan got it, she was absolutely wonderful,” he said. “All was [cast] as it should have been.”
following the leukocyte audition, Lynskey went on to star in several other films, including ugly coyote, shooters and Snake skin. But it wasn’t until 2002 when she made her television debut. Since then, she has proven to be a force in both mediums, including earning Emmy nominations for her roles in The last of us and yellow jackets.
