From Scenario: The Magazine of Screenwriting Art Vol.1,No.4

Scenario: I know you found Kate Winslet at an audition in England. How did you come across Melanie Lynskey, who played Pauline? I understand she was not a professional actress.

Peter Jackson: Well, it's one of those stories that sounds like it's not true. We wanted to cast someone in New Zealand, and we'd auditioned a lot of people-- five or six hundred-- who were either videotaped or photographed. I wanted to find someone who was young around 15 or 16 years old; I didn't want a 23-year-old in a school uniform. And we wanted someone who was physically very much like the original Pauline; I have a thing about being as accurate as possible. So we quickly exhausted the professional actors in New Zealand who happened to look like Pauline--- there's only about two or three. [laughs] We knew we were looking for someone with no experience, but we just had to find them. We kept saying, "Somewhere in New Zealand there's somebody who's perfect for this role."

We were actually about four weeks away from beginning shooting, and we had one or two people on the short list, neither of who we were happy with, but we were coming under enormous pressure to cast one of them, because, you know, the wardrobe department needed to make costumes and so on, and Fran said to me, "You're not happy with the choices, are you?" And I said, "No." And she said, "This is crazy; we've spent all this time and energy on this film and we haven't found Pauline. This is something close to a major tragedy." I was in Christchurch, so Fran decided to drive with a casting person around the lower half of the North Island of New Zealand---she was prepared to drive as far as she had to. They'd visit every small town, go to the local school, visit the principal's office show a photo of Pauline Parker. She'd say, "We're making a movie about Pauline Parker; do you have any pupils in your school who resemble her who might be interested in this?"

Fran Walsh: We were in a rusting Ford Cortina, and we had no official I.D. We'd roll up to these provincial schools, and we'd be greeted by some curious teacher. Although no one ever once questioned or authenticity, we would always get asked about the car: "If you're in films, why aren't you driving a Porsche?" [both laugh] SO then I would pitch the story to the entire classroom, scanning the room the whole time, looking for sullen, brooding school girls, all the while thinking, "What would she look like with her hair dyed black?"

Peter Jackson: I guess that went on for about a week. Every night I'd get a call from Fran. Anyone that was vaguely appropriate was videotaped, and I got a couple of tales in Christchurch, and it was a bit depressing. Finally, Fran called from a small town called New Plymouth, and said, "I think I've found someone very interesting." And this was Mel. We flew her down to Christchurch and gave her an audition and a screen test, and we cast her two weeks before the film started shooting. I called her mother up on a Friday night and said, "I'd really like Melanie to do the film." And she said, "When does she have to start?" And I said, "Well, she's got to come down here on Sunday." The poor girl didn't even get a chance to go back to school to out her locker.

Scenario: Do you think there was any correspondence between the two actresses and their backgrounds and those of the characters they were playing?

Peter Jackson: One of the things that we knew about Pauline was that she was incredibly witty and intelligent, and Melanie was very similar---she was the top student in her province in may subjects. And we knew if we cast an intelligent person, then they were going to hit it. Melanie's also very enigmatic. The character of Pauline doesn't have an enormous amount of dialogue. In a sense, the real Pauline speaks for her, through the diaries. So what we were looking for was an actress who has that kind of aspect to her that's a real movie-star thing: where you can film someone sitting in a room, doing nothing, and they're fascinating to watch. We found that in Mel.

The above text is taken from an interview by Tod Lippy in the Fall 1995 issue of Scenario: The Magazine of Screen Writing Art (Vol. 1, No. 4.). Copyright of RC Publications, Inc.

If you'd like to get the full text of the interview, you can get the issue through Scenario's 800 number -- 1(800)-222-2654.

Article transcribed by Thaiphong Vo. May 24, 1996