Melanie Lynskey opened up about her experiences with body-shaming while working on the set of 2000's Coyote Ugly in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
Lynskey, who is currently featured in the plane-crash survival drama, The Yellowjackets, joined her TV co-stars Juliette Lewis, Christina Ricci, and Tawny Cypress in a profile for the magazine in which they shared their experiences in Hollywood.
"All the girls had this regimen they had to go on. It was ridiculous," Lynskey said of her experience in Coyote Ugly.
"I was already starving myself and as thin as I could possibly be for this body, and I was still a [size] four."
"That was already people putting a lot of Spanx on me in wardrobe fittings and being very disappointed when they saw me, the costume designer being like, 'Nobody told me there would be girls like you.'"
"Really intense feedback about my physicality, my body, people doing my makeup and being like, 'I'm just going to help you out by giving you a bit more of a jawline and stuff.'"
She continued:
"Just the feedback was constantly like, 'You're not beautiful. You’re not beautiful.'"
"In your early 20s, so much of it is about beauty, and how people respond to you, and do people want to f'k you?"
This wasn't the first time the 44-year-old actress faced similar pressure regarding her body image.
When she was a teenager fresh off of her success in the breakout performance in 1994's Heavenly Creatures, the New Zealand actress said she was reminded at the time she was not "thin, confident, pretty."
"Mostly thin," she said, adding, "There was a certain pleasant energy they wanted people to have. Unchallenging. And I wasn’t successful doing that."
Feeling the pressure to lose weight, a young Lynskey engaged in eating disorders. including extreme dieting and induced vomitting. until her boyfriend at the time alerted her to the dangers.
Lynskey spoke out against body-shaming when fans of The Yellowjackets accused her of not being thin enough.
"The story of my life since Yellowjackets premiered," she tweeted.
"Most egregious are the 'I care about her health!!' people…"
She shot down the assumptions made by those who thought the actress was not in shape or actively exercising.
"b*tch you don't see me on my Peleton! You don't see me running through the park with my child."
"Skinny does not always equal healthy."
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