Melanie Lynskey opens up about the challenges she encountered on the Coyote Ugly sets. This week marks the 22nd anniversary of the musical’s premiere, and Lynskey is sharing that she had some negative experiences while filming the love story. Tyra Banks, Piper Perabo, Maria Bello, Izabella Miko, Adam Garcia, and other actors were also included in the David McNally-directed movie.
The Yellowjackets actor revealed inside information from the sets to The Hollywood Reporter in a recent interview. She revealed, “All the girls had this regimen they had to go on. It was ridiculous.” She added, “I was already starving myself and as thin as I could possibly be for this body, and I was still a four.”
She continued by saying, “There were already people putting a lot of Spanx on me in wardrobe fittings and being very disappointed when they saw me, the costume designer [at the time] being like, ‘Nobody told me there would be girls like you.'” She added, “In your early 20s, so much of it is about beauty, and how people respond to you and do people want to f— you? Do people think you’re their best friend? Even the best friend thing, I started to be like, ‘I don’t want to do that too many times.'”
The actress clarified in a tweet after her interview received significant online attention. She wrote, “I see this has become a headline so please let me clarify some things! The costume designer who initially worked on Coyote Ugly left for some reason, and a lovely kind woman named Marlene Stewart took over and she was AWESOME. The first person was mean, the person credited was not.” She continued by expressing regret for the confusion and saying she was in “the business of publicly humiliating people.”