Melanie Lynskey’s Husband Jason Ritter Convinced Her to Star in ‘The Last of Us’
Relationships March 23, 2023
Melanie Lynskey has her gamer husband to thank for pushing her to star in her latest hit TV show!
Melanie, who stars in the HBO series “The Last of Us,” said she only agreed to appear in the hit show because her husband, Jason Ritter, is a huge fan of the video game it’s based on.
“I’m always tired, so every time a job comes up, I’m like “Mmm… do I want to?” she told Jennifer Hudson on “The Jennifer Hudson Show.”
“And he was like, ‘It’s “The Last of Us”!’ It’s his favorite video game of all time,” she said. “He loves it. And then I read the script, and it was so good.”
Considering that his wife was starring in the TV adaptation of his favorite game ever, Jason found himself visiting her frequently on the set. “He managed to be on set quite a bit for that. He was pretty excited!” she said.
As for what it was like filming the series, Melanie calls the experience “horrific and disgusting.”
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View Story“There’s a scene I took part in where swarms of mushroom-faced zombie monsters come out of the ground, and it was all practical — people in makeup that took hours and hours,” said Melanie.
“And there were stunt performers, and circus performers, and acrobats, and people tumbling and running as fast as they can towards you, hundreds of people with this makeup on,” she recalled, adding, “There was not a lot of acting involved!”
Melanie is also the star of the Showtime series “Yellowjackets,” a hit show that earned the actress her first Emmy nomination.
“To have a moment where it feels like everything is kind of coming together” — she knocks on the table superstitiously — “is kind of too good to be true. It’s amazing.”
Melanie may have been surprised by her success, but one person who did see this coming was her psychic!
“I have a psychic, Fatima, who I love very much,” Melanie told JHud. “In the middle of the pandemic I was talking to her, and she just said, ‘All I see is work, work, work.’
“At that moment in time, it sounded like a crazy thing to say,” she said.
“I had done the pilot for ‘Yellowjackets’ and not heard anything… She said, ‘You’ve already done part of it, and you’re going to do more, and it’s going to be a huge hit.’
“And I just was like, ‘I guess I did this pilot,’ and she said, ‘It’s that.’”
Melanie continued, “She said, ‘You’re going to have a moment in your career that you felt like, because it didn’t happen when you were 25, that it wasn’t going to happen. And it’s coming.’
“She’s very good,” said Melanie.
“The Jennifer Hudson Show” airs weekdays. Here’s when to watch in your area.
