For playing a detective tasked with solving a White House murder and a housewife burdened with a past of dark secrets, Uzo Aduba and Melanie Lynskey leaned into comedic moments in their drama series, “The Residence” and “Yellowjackets,” more than one might imagine.
“It’s just honesty … I do like being able to find moments of levity in dramatic situations or something that feels real that can also be funny,” Lynskey told Aduba during a new installment of TheWrap’s long-form video series Visionaries, noting that “Yellowjackets” finds a welcome blend of drama and comedy.
For Aduba, who notably won an Emmy in both the comedy and drama categories for playing Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren in “Orange Is the New Black,” finding the comedic beats in “The Residence” wasn’t tricky, and she relished the show’s fast pace.
“I think of the comedy as it just … moves so fast — the pace is intentionally very quick — and I imagine it is being inside of the character’s head and how she processes information really quickly, so the interesting thing is … not playing necessarily into that but just moving through it,” Aduba said.
It’s Cordelia Cupp’s quick-witted nature that makes her moments of silence all the more powerful as she pieces together clues of the murder mystery. “These spells where she’s really silent … it felt like, ‘Oh, this might actually be a really exciting exercise in stillness,’” Aduba said. “As much as she’s able to extrapolate from something that she observes, she’s also really great at observing people and extrapolating information from that silence as well.”
“There were just some moments on the show where I was watching you in the stillness and the quiet, thinking, and the way that you showed that you were thinking was so beautiful,” Lynskey told Aduba. “It felt like a masterclass.”
Lynskey has woven a similar complexity into Shauna on “Yellowjackets,” who, three seasons into the Showtime series, continues to surprise with what Lynskey calls “constant” terrible choices, that she clarifies never feel like they’re done for shock value.
“You get a little protective when you play someone for multiple seasons,” Lynskey said, adding that every decision Shauna makes makes sense to her, even if it’s a complete departure from how Lynskey herself would act. “I don’t make any decision lightly … so it’s fun to play someone who gets like 50% of the information and acts upon it … it’s very different to me.”
Aduba and Lynskey witnessed each other’s keen ability to create depth in their characters when they acted alongside one another in FX on Hulu’s 2020 series “Mrs. America,” which saw Aduba play politician Shirley Chisholm while Lynskey portrayed Rosemary Thomson, a follower of Cate Blanchett’s Phyllis Schlafly. Lynskey points to the power, humanity and hurt that Aduba brought to the table read of the Chisholm-centered episode, calling it “one of the most magical moments” of her life as an actor.
Likewise, Aduba applauded the unique choices Lynskey made as her character watched a speech from Schlafly, hitting several comedic beats that were not in the script. “What’s brilliant about your work is we’re watching constantly the ever-shifting movement of decision — that it’s not actually quite as easy as we think it is to come to a position on a tough decision,” Aduba said, noting the experience is more authentic to the human experience.
To hear the actresses bond over their humble acting beginnings and discerning what projects they would like to pursue in the future, watch the full Visionaries video above.
Visionaries is produced by Jennifer Laski, Head of Video and Photography for TheWrap.
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