Sparks still fly as co-stars connect

Taranaki Daily News

DOUBLE ACT: Melanie Lynskey and Craig Hall are the stars of new film Show of Hands.

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They are both happily married, both earn a good living pretending to be in love with someone else and a year ago spent a month trying to make people believe they were in love with each other.

Such is life for actors Melanie Lynskey and Craig Hall, stars of the Anthony McCarten film Show Of Hands which premiered in New Plymouth last night.

The feature length comedy was shot in New Plymouth during November last year in what Hall described as a period of hard and fast work.

The Outrageous Fortune star and object of the character Pascalle West's affections, very nearly missed the chance to bask in Taranaki sunlight because he was simply too good looking.

"You were too handsome, like Tom Cruise. Anthony said you wouldn't work because no one would ever believe we would go out together," says Lynskey, the gorgeous Two And A Half Men star who hails from New Plymouth.

"No he didn't," says Hall, who may genuinely believe that, although you never can tell with actors.

For example, just a few days ago rumours abounded Lynskey was seven months up the duff yet she is now as trim as a lamb cutlet.

"I've just finished a movie - Leaves Of Grass - in Louisiana where I was playing opposite Edward Norton and I had a huge prosthetic belly strapped to me because I was supposed to be pregnant. It was very weird."

Just as A-lister Edward Norton was very serious, so was Hall during the filming last year.

The Auckland actor apparently had a habit of reading acting books in between takes, the theatrical equivalent of a mathematician memorising Pi to 56,000 numerals.

"That used to make me feel lazy," says Lynskey. "And that used to make me annoyed at him which he got annoyed about and that annoyed me. But that only happened once or twice."

The pair are two of New Zealand's acting success stories with a few notes to throw around. Not that this means they have.

Hall embarrassingly admits he drives a Nissan Bluebird, a car more associated with sense than sexiness. Lynskey drives an Acura in Los Angeles, where she now lives.

"I use a motorbike though," says Hall, quickly trying to escape the tarnish his Bluebird admission could cause his image.

"A Triumph Bonneville. When I was holding the car for the movie, that was what I was imagining."

The actor selflessly attributes this acting technique to one of the books he so annoyingly read on set last year.

"Michael Chekhov On Acting," says the swatty Hall.

Lynskey stays quiet.

- © Fairfax NZ News