Yellowjackets star and 2022 Emmy nominee Melanie Lynskey recently opened up about the incredibly heavy pressure her friend Brittany Murphy felt to look a certain way – something that exacerbated Murphy’s declining mental health.
In an interview with InStyle, Lynskey said that Murphy’s low self image was “heartbreaking.”
“I was friends with Brittany Murphy, and the way she viewed herself was always really heartbreaking to me—the things she felt she had to change to be a successful actor. She was perfect just as she was, but people were trying to cast her as, like, ‘the fat one,’ because when she was a very young teenager, her cheeks were a little bit round. People tell you that you’re a particular thing, and it’s very hard to fight back against.”
Murphy passed away at the age of 32 from anemia, pneumonia and “multiple drug intoxication,” according to a Los Angeles County Coroner. Her death was ruled an accident and no illegal drugs were found in her system.
Lynskey said Hollywood pressure to look your best is excruciating, and that no matter what happens (even an Emmy nomination) can’t erase her self-doubt about her appearance. She told E! Online that she was even body shamed on the set of Yellowjackets.
“They were asking me, ‘What do you plan to do? I’m sure the producers will get you a trainer. They’d love to help you with this.'”
The pressure she and Murphy dealt with never really goes away, she said.
“It’s such a struggle, always. I feel like I have two voices in my head. One of them is coming from my heart and my soul and what I know is right, and it’s telling me, ‘You’re perfectly fine.’ And then the other voice is just this little voice that’s always been there that’s like, ‘What are you thinking? Thinking your body’s OK. It’s not OK. You have to change it, like, What are you thinking, doing a love scene? What are you thinking, being one of the leads of a show?'”
Support is important, she said, and she gets it from her husband Jason Ritter. She also tries to remember to be nicer to herself.
“It’s a struggle within myself to just say, ‘I feel beautiful.’ My husband thinks I’m beautiful,’ she said. ‘And also we look like the majority of women in the world. We’re healthy, you know? I think there’s this weird shaming of anybody who’s not, like, a size 2, and I’m just over it.’”
Yellowjackets will potentially return in early 2023.