Melanie, congratulations on the show.
Thank you for your time.
Delighted to chat to you. Thanks.
Have you still been able to get your head around the success of the show?
I know when you do something, you hope people will receive it very well.
But with something like this, I mean, it's just gone stratospheric very quickly.
Have you got a sense of just how big it's gotten?
I know you've done it. Season two.
I think I'm starting to kind of understand it.
It was such a crazy whirlwind
because I went straight from the first season.
I went and did another show called Candy, and then I did The Last of Us
right after that.
So I just was working.
And then suddenly it was the Emmys.
I mean, I was back again, back at work again.
So I haven't really had a moment of sitting
and taking a deep breath and thinking about what my life has become.
I need it.
I mean, you just spoke about that.
You've done this and then you've done The Last of Us
which are the two kind of two of the biggest things.
How how was that for you in terms of performer
going from one to another to another?
Did you enjoy the fact that it's quite a.
Well, you know, maelstrom,
if you like, where you're doing one thing after another after another?
I would rather have a break.
It's just not know how it's happened.
I'm very grateful to be working.
And I also understand that it's not going to last forever.
So I feel like while good opportunities are coming to me, I should take them,
even though it's exhausting.
But. But, yeah, I just.
I feel so, so, so fortunate.
It was a lot, though, like going I think I had
I think I had a
week in between Candy and the Last of Us,
And it wasn't enough time yet to sell.
Yeah, my daughter's like, Where are we?
What's happening?
What's this town called?
Calgary. I know you spoke before about that.
You've enjoyed doing
some of that kind of lower budget stuff because you allowed to be more creative.
Did you feel like this show was even though
it was a kind of a network show and there was
that this was similar to that in the sense that it was a very different story
and allowed you to be more creative than maybe if you'd done something else.
Yeah. Similar.
Yeah, very much.
I'm I'm still kind of amazed that I found, like,
a job on TV that allows me to do so much.
It's incredible to me to be 45 years old
and be playing this character who's so interesting and so complicated.
I just it's incredible.
When you I obviously, you know, with receivers, you get to spend
a lot more time with a character and a bit more that bleeds into you.
A bit more of you bleeds into to them is an advantage or disadvantage view
as a performer getting to spend more time because sometimes I guess you do films
and you go in for you can go for a few days or yeah, weeks.
Whereas there's this you get a lot more time.
Did you feel that was an advantage or a disadvantage?
I think it's an advantage because for the writers, they get to see
what is working.
They get to see people's different specific chemistries with each other.
You know, like this season, I have a lot more
funny stuff with Warren Kole, who plays my husband.
I think as they saw last at the end of last season, all that kind of works
when they're doing these sort of like screwball like comedic things together.
So there's more of that this season, which is fun.
It's nice that the writers get to see like how things are playing out and
and add to it. Yeah.
I have to say,
you do have one of the funniest lines in the trailers,
which is I think you don't ask you if you're a murder and you're like, No.
Well, I guess yeah, I guess. Yeah.
Yeah. Delivered as well.
I have to say, I think you could you could do that.
I wanted to ask you about this ensemble because there's you and obviously
Christina Ricci and Juliette Lewis, but there's all these wonderful
young performers that are doing amazing work as well.
And I also I know you don't spend necessarily time on set together, but
is it is it
it must be fascinating to watch their work as well,
because you're not always part of that, Whereas when you see the show,
you get to see all the amazing work that they've done.
Obviously, that they're playing some of you guys as well.
Oh, I you know, in the first season, every episode,
we had a table read on Zoom, so I just would get to
watch their performances and it was so, so, so fun.
This season, we didn't do it as much because we were doing a lot of tandem
episodes where everyone was shooting at the same time.
But I'm just I'm kind of in awe of all of them
and of our casting directors for finding this
incredibly talented group of people.
And it's really hard because a lot of them are supposed to die. So
I think that the writers, they're having a really hard time.
They don't want to kill anyone because everyone's so good
and they're just like, What are we supposed to do?
That's the thing with with series is, Oh, I guess we're fans.
Take two characters a member of Stranger Things, one of the favorite characters
was a character that got killed off on the first one or two episodes.
Oh, really?
And they're like, We know she's dead.
Oh, yeah. Oh, great.
Yes. Yes.
Bob Hope. Yes. It was like, Brenda, that's.
That's really bad.
No, sorry. Stranger things, people.
I wanted to ask about Shauna.
I mean, is this so much of a franchise, a fantastic character
that is so layers to her and, you know,
obviously the trauma of everything and everything else for you,
what was the
the specific thing when you read it for the first time that that immediately
your brain went, oh, Shauna is someone I'd I'd really like to play.
There are two things because I only had the pilot episode
and there's not a lot of Shauna
in the pilot, but there's a scene where she's ironing and she's
watching a game show,
and I can't remember the exact line,
but she harshly judges a contestant who gets so wrong.
And it was very funny to me.
And then there's a scene with Tony in the diner
where he understand that at some point in her life
she had a tremendous amount of power.
And now she's you know, you've just seen her
in this domestic space having this unfulfilling life.
And I was like, that's really interesting.
Like, people are kind of afraid of her for some reason.
And I wanted to investigate that.
Yeah, but yeah, and I mean, that is and the writers get the balance just right
between everything, because when you read the synopses, you're
going to think, I'm not sure how this would, this would play out.
These feel
like a lot of conflicting things going on, but it's such a great synergy.
Was that another reason for you to want to go involved?
Because it is so smart?
Yeah, there's so much.
I feel like every time I try to explain the show, I make it sound so dramatic
and then I say, But it's funny.
And then that sounds even worse.
It's like Funny Cannibals that.
Oh, okay, that sounds great.
But it is true.
Like the comedy.
There's such a good balance of this terrible, high
stakes, awful things happening.
And then humor just lays throughout.
They're really good at that. Yeah.
I have to ask you quickly about the Last of US,
which has just become I mean, it's a phenomenon.
And for someone who played the games, I mean, it's hard to adapt
video games into anything that you're
serious and have done such a amazing job and you've obviously just come into it.
How was that experience?
Because did you did you know about the games before you played it?
Well, I knew about the games
because my husband loved it's his favorite video game of all time.
So on some level, I knew.
And then my friend Craig Mazin
was one of the creators of the show, so I knew that that's what Craig was doing.
But he called me one day and he said, I've written a character for you.
Do you want to come and do it?
And I've always, always, always wanted to work with him.
It was such a dream.
And then it was just a great experience, just beginning
to end, just kind of perfect.
Husband was happier than I can imagine.
It was so happy and he got to play one of the infected people.
Of course. Of course. Yeah. Yeah.
So that was.
I mean, I've never seen someone happier.
Maybe the day our child was born, he was he was about as happy
as he was playing a clicker.
Close number two. Yeah, very close.
Very close. Yeah. All right.
So lovely to meet you. Thanks so much.
Lovely to meet you, too. Thank you.