Melanie Wilson, total straight-shooter
The Vancouver actor on COVID disruptions, discharging firearms and Denis Villeneuve's DUNE.
VANCOUVER – When actor Melanie Wilson and I sat down for an interview last November, the world was a different place. Dune was still in theatres and nobody knew what the fuck an Omicron was. One month prior, Alec Baldwin captured international headlines after he fatally shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust. It would be another two weeks before he gave an interview on what happened.
With the newscycle churning at an unrelenting pace, and outside commitments stacking up, I worried Mel and I’s conversation might be stale by the time I could give it the proper attention. I was happily surprised, then, to find that simply wasn’t the case. Our conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, found Mel (CW’s Batwoman and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow) reflecting on how the pandemic has hit Vancouver’s acting community, and her own forays into therapy. We also spoke about Dune, her love of guns, and why our friendship took a brief, seemingly random, hiatus. Not to worry, though. Like any good friends, we picked up right where we left off.
ES: So obvious question: how’s it going? It’s been so long since we caught up.
MW: Yeah, man, it’s good. It’s good now, finally, after the last two years. I feel like we fell out of touch before the pandemic, but I feel like during the pandemic I fell out of touch with pretty much everyone.
ES: I thought we fell out of touch too and I was never really quite sure why.
MW: Yeah. I don’t know. I had just started this acting class, and then I kind of found my people, I guess. Also, I feel like everyone in our little bubble that we had for those couple of years sort of started to disperse at a certain point.
ES: I think it comes with just growing up and people’s lifestyles change. I definitely remember you talking about acting class a lot and realizing even in terms of schedules and stuff things were so different.
MW: It’s hard. Even dating is so hard too, unless it’s like another fucking actor or somebody who works in the restaurant industry. I’m sort of seeing this guy and I met him like a month ago, and I’ve only seen him twice. He’s like, “Oh are you free this weekend?” And I’m like, “No, I work” [laughs] “I’m free Monday and Tuesday during the day.” It just sucks.
ES: Totally. I remember when I worked weekends and nights, it can be isolating because you don’t have close friends or family who are on that same schedule, so you end up doing a lot of stuff solo.
MW: Pretty much. So when I found people that were in the exact same boat as me, it was like “Oh my God, we can do stuff at regular times on a Tuesday” instead of having to go meet people at 11:00 pm when I’m off work on the weekend.
ES: And then of course the last two years have not been great for acting or for restaurants.
MW: I didn’t work for probably three or four months. I was literally just at home all day, every day… I watched every single Marvel movie that has ever been released.
ES: Really? Which one was your favourite?
MW: I think I like Thor Ragnarok best. It’s the funniest.
ES: That’s the one directed by Taika Waititi.
MW: He’s so funny. I can’t remember what his character’s name is. He’s that rock guy or whatever. But yeah I was out of work for a long time and then I was really lucky because I got to work on set a little bit in October and November [of 2020]. I just was on set this week… I hadn’t worked the whole year. That was pretty rough [laughs].
ES: That sucks. When you say you’re like on set, is that acting or are you doing something else?
MW: Just acting. I booked a role on this TV show. I’m probably not allowed to talk about it… but yeah, it was hard. It sucks when you’re not booking anything for a year, but at least you’re still auditioning, you’re still getting to act. What was really hard was when everything shut down, and it was just like, no job to go to, no chance of doing any acting and no auditions for months. No single audition. It’s just very depressing.
ES: Did you feel rusty when things started to pick up?
MW: Super rusty. You just turn to shit. You can’t just not act for a year and then jump back into it and be really good. It’s just so weird.
ES: And it’s so dependent on other people.
MW: Yeah… there’s been no in-person auditions for the last two years. There’s pros and cons because when you tape everything at home you can be less prepared in terms of knowing your lines. You can do your tape ten million times, if you want, until you get it right. But it does lack that performance energy that you only find in the room.
The best benefit is that I don’t have to arrange my whole day around auditions all over the city. It’s just like, “Oh, you have this tape – do it this time, this day.” You schedule yourself, which is nice.
ES: And then the rest of it is Mel’s time.
MW: My time in my bed with my cat.
ES: I wanted to ask, are you living alone or do you still have roommates?
MW: No, I’m living alone. My roommate moved out in August to live with her boyfriend.
ES: So you did most of the pandemic together? [Editor’s note: LOL he thought the pandemic was close to ending].
MW: Yeah – I don’t know how people who live alone got through it… I guess they were able to have a buddy. But there were months and months at a time where the only people I would see, other than grocery store workers, was my roommate and her boyfriend. I just would have gone crazy, I think, if I was by myself. I mean, I went crazy as it was, but I can’t imagine how worse it would’ve been.
ES: What did that look like exactly?
MW: Just massive anxiety… I started taking antidepressants, which is new but it’s been world changing.
ES: In a good way?
MW: When I started them I was like, “How did I not do this years ago?”
There’s such a stigma, right? Even for myself. I just did not want to be medicated. I just wanted to avoid it at all costs. But most of my family’s medicated, so it was always something where I was like, “I probably should be, but I’m just going to suffer through it.” But now that I am, I’m like, yay!
ES: It’s weird because we talk about mental health so much, but you’re totally right, there’s a stigma, especially around medication.
MW: I haven’t been on them that long, it’s probably been six months, but something I’ve noticed that I don’t love is that I can feel them when I’m acting. It’s a weird balance, I’m on the absolute lowest dose that I could possibly be on while still having them help me, but I could probably be on a higher dose and feel better. But I don’t want to be because I feel like, as an actor, one of my strengths is depth of emotion…. And now it’s harder for sure.
ES: Is it only noticeable when you’re accessing sadness or does it affect you accessing other emotions as well?
MW: I talked to my sister about this, actually, because I realized, “Oh, I feel it like when I’m crying,” I can’t just turn it on like I used to. And my sister was telling me that she notices it more when she laughs… Like her laughter doesn’t feel as full or whatever. But I haven’t noticed that. For me it just dulls the low emotions… Maybe it’s because I was always mildly depressed before whenever I had to feel sad in a scene, it just was so easy for me to drop into sadness and tears and have it be really authentic… Now it just feels like I have to do a lot more like character work and exploration of the scene and stuff to really get grounded in it.
ES: That’s so interesting. I think anyone who has lived through the pandemic has probably been on some sort of mental health journey, whether or not they’re talking about it. Like I started going to therapy in pandemic winter [2021].
MW: Me too! In January 2021, I was like “We should get it together here.”
ES: Was it easy for you to find someone cause for me, I was on a waitlist for probably at least six weeks or longer because every psychologist is so busy?
MW: I found someone fast, but I don’t have coverage or anything. So I went on to the website where you can literally look through everybody. I like that their pictures are up too, I don’t know… something about seeing the picture of the person, you can get a little bit of a vibe. I would like to read someone’s bio. This is so vain… Or I don’t know if it’s vain… But I would read someone’s bio and be like, “Oh, they sound great” and then see their picture and be like, “No, not for me.”
ES: I was definitely the same. I had pretty strict guidelines of what I was looking for… I don’t want to do therapy with a man, I especially don’t want to do therapy with an older man.
MW: Yeah, I had a similar thing. I want an older woman and I want them to specialize in these things. It’s hard though, it’s so expensive hey? Like I was paying $175 for an hour.
ES: My work’s coverage is really good as long as you have a doctor’s note, but you’re still paying out of pocket. I think my girl is like $220 which is crazy. But she’s great and it’s been like a really satisfying journey.
MW: It literally feels like life changing.
ES: Have you had any breakthroughs?
MW: For sure. I was suffering from really severe anxiety and intrusive OCD thinking. My therapist specialized in what’s called EMDR, which is this weird thing where you just follow [the movements of] a pen and then she guides you through things. It feels like classic therapy when I explain it, but holy shit, does it work. But yeah, therapy is hard. I was talking to [my therapist] once and I said “I dread coming here. Like, I don’t look forward to going to therapy because I know it’s going to be hard.” And she was like, “You really have to want to change your life to do this.”
ES: Also, what is it like working on set like with COVID and everything? Is it really different? I’m.
MW: I’m sure a lot of people would say “Yeah,” but I don’t think it’s really that different. There’s just like extra things we have to do now. You have to wear a mask all the time and you’re mostly supposed to stay six feet apart from people and you can’t eat lunch all next to each other. Just little germ-y things you have to worry about. They test you all the time, like three times a week.
ES: Oh my god.
MW: Yeah, it’s a lot. But it’s just for safety, right? I think it’s a human rights issue to require vaccines. I wish it was a mandatory thing to be double vaccinated to work on a film set but they’re not allowed to ask.
ES: Speaking of film safety, have you been following the Alec Baldwin story?
MW: I feel like I’m following it closely, but I haven’t read any new information yet…
I feel like the level of negligence that would have had to go into every single level, of every single department, is unbelievable… The people that died and were injured were the director and the director of photography right?
ES: Mhm [Editor’s note: Halyna Hutchins, who was fatally shot, was actually a cinematographer.]
MW: Why was it even pointed at them? That makes no sense to me.
ES: Have you ever had a scene where you were shooting a gun?
MW: I haven’t, no. Yeah. Well, no, I don’t think so.
ES: I was just wondering if you’ve had that sense of power.
MW: No. I mean, I’ve shot a gun before, but never on set, and I feel like they usually take it really, really, really seriously. Nobody jokes around, everyone’s like terrified that someone will yell at you for stepping out of line. It’s a scary thing.
ES: Also, where have you shot a gun before?
MW: My dad took me for my birthday once to a shooting range in Edmonton.
ES: How old were you? What birthday was it?
MW: I think 17, maybe. I was always obsessed with Kill Bill, and thought “If I’m not going to be an actor, I’m going to be an assassin.” But yeah, he took me and it was really fun and I’m a really good shot.
ES: What kind of gun were you shooting?
MW: I have no memory.
ES: Was it like a pistol or was it like something really big?
MW: I think I got to shoot a couple of them. It’s really expensive, though…But I also have shot lots of little pellet guns and stuff. Out on random farms and shit. Those are fun too.
ES: I have never shot anything more than a water gun.
MW: Really? Do you want to?
ES: I’m not sure. What’s it like?
MW: Fun. It’s really fun. We all did archery at Curtis’s wedding, right?
ES: No, I didn’t do archery. I think I’ve maybe done archery once in gym class, but that feels different than guns.
MW: For me it’s the challenge and the sport of it. Like that’s what I’m aiming for, and when you hit it, it feels just really, really good. Shoot a pellet gun at some pop cans, it’s really satisfying when they go down. Like it’s so satisfying. You feel really good about yourself.
ES: You’re cold blooded.
MW: Yeah. I don’t think I could ever hunt anything though.
ES: I was going to ask you if hunting was part of your life growing up.
MW: Not at all. Like, not even a little bit. I always thought I could go hunting, but now it’s like what we were talking about. The pandemic changed us all. I couldn’t kill anything now.
ES: I don’t want to take up too much more of your time, but I did want to pick your brain about Dune. I remember you were the first person who was ever excited about that movie, and I was thinking about you when we watched it.
MW: Holy shit how long ago was that?
ES: Like, five years ago?
MW: Jesus Christ… Yeah I don’t know. I don’t know if my opinion is fully formed yet about the movie. I feel like people really like it… I feel like I was a little bit underwhelmed and I can’t really say why.
ES: I feel the same. Did you like the book when you read it?
MW: I loved the book a lot, and the book made sense to me. It’s my kind of thing. I love family history and prophecy and weird shit like that.
ES: I think I had a similar experience with the book that I did with the movie, in that I finished them and thought “I didn’t enjoy that very much at all – it was kind of a slog to get through.” But then I realized that I keep thinking about it, which suggests maybe I did enjoy it? It’s just so dense. I’d have to work up the energy to engage with it.
MW: Same. I made myself power through because when I put it down for too long and came back to it, sort of like Game of Thrones, I’d be lost. Like, what did I just read about? I saw the movie with two friends who haven’t read the book and I gave them a little bit of a two minute explanation – so they’re on the planet and they need to get the spice (laughs). It was a very rough outline but they said they have had no idea what the fuck was going on without it.
Watching the movie, having read the book, I felt like there was so much exposition to tell the audience what was happening. It was all very visually amazing, obviously, and I thought the performances were great. The mum, Rebecca Ferguson, holy shit she’s fucking good. But yeah, the plot left me underwhelmed.
ES: I think it would be better as a TV show.
MW: I feel the same. It would have to be done on the same scale. That’s what made the first couple seasons of Game of Thrones so good. They actually took the time to fill in the details… It’s such a huge undertaking and that’s probably why every Dune [that came before this one] failed.
Melanie Wilson is an actor living in Burnaby, BC, Canada. She has appeared in several television and film productions, including 2020’s All-In Madonna.