Actress in New Series ‘Tattooist of Auschwitz’ Was ‘Heartbroken’ to Discover She Doesn’t Have Jewish Roots

Actress Melanie Lynskey thought her whole life that she was Jewish because of her Jewish-sounding last name and was disappointed to learn recently that she only has Irish roots, she admitted on Thursday.

“My name is Irish, as it turns out. I’m only Irish,” the New Zealand native, 46, said during her guest appearance on the British talk show This Morning. She then added that she was “so heartbroken” to discover she’s not Jewish. “I believed it my whole life,” she said.

Lynskey — whose credits include Yellowjackets, Ever After and Coyote Ugly — now stars in the six-part series The Tattooist Of Auschwitz, which will stream next month on Peacock. The miniseries, based on Heather Morris’ best-selling novel of the same name, is inspired by the real-life love story of Lali Sokolov and Gita Furman, who met while prisoners in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp during the Holocaust. Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, was taken to Auschwitz in 1942 and was forced to become one of the camp’s tattooists, who inked identification numbers on to the arms of prisoners. He met Furman, who was also Slovakian, while tattooing her arm.

The miniseries goes back and forth between Sokolov’s time in the Auschwitz concentration camp and him being an elderly widower in his 80s, recounting his life story and memories to Morris. The author met Sokolov in 2003 and the Holocaust survivor died in 2006.

Lynskey plays Morris, who is also from New Zealand, and Harvey Keitel plays an elderly Sokolov. Jonah Hauer-King and Polish actress Anna Prochniak star in the leading roles of the two lovers. The series is directed by Israeli filmmaker Tali Shalom-Ezer and its score is composed by Oscar winner Hans Zimmer and Kara Talve.

During her appearance on This Morning, Lynskey also talked about starring in the series and said she had not read The Tattooist Of Auschwitz before joining the project. “I had read the book after I had read the screenplays [and] the screenplays were wonderful,” she said. “The story is so compelling. It’s an almost unbelievable story and beautifully written.”

Morris, who was also a guest on the morning show, said that when writing The Tattooist Of Auschwitz, she felt a pressure to share Sokolov’s story with the world. “I owed it to him and nobody else,” she explained, adding: “I’ve written Lali’s story. His memory. And when the facts doesn’t always meet up with what he was telling me, I went with his memory.”

The Tattooist Of Auschwitz begins streaming on Peacock on May 2. Watch the trailer below.