Melanie Lynskey ‘didn’t know’ her husband Jason Ritter was proposing, ‘So confusing’

Kiwi actress Melanie Lynskey has been married to Jason Ritter for four years - but has confessed that when he initially proposed, she didn’t realise he was asking her to marry him.

The New Plymouth-born star, 46, told her hilarious proposal story during a recent appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, revealing she was shocked to discover she was engaged after a bizarre conversation with the man who is now her 44-year-old husband.

Melanie told the talk show host that she’d accidentally chosen her own ring when she spotted the piece of jewellery in a shop and pointed out that it looked like an engagement ring.

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“I didn’t know what was happening ... the day before I had been looking at rings and I tried one on and I was like ‘Oh, kind of looks like an engagement ring almost. I don’t think I’m going to get it,’” the Yellowjackets star shared.

“So then, he got me this ring, so I was like: ‘Oh, thanks!’ It didn’t sort of cross my mind.”

The couple were watching The Bachelor on TV when Jason gave her the ring and paused the show.

“I was just sort of like: ‘Oh, okay.’ And I was like: ‘We’re not breaking up?’ He was like: ‘No, No, No!’ So I said: ‘Okay,’ and then I was like: ‘Well, thank you ... lovely, good chat!’”

Melanie did not announce the engagement until the following year in 2017, revealing it took her three days to realise that she’d promised to marry Jason.

“Then three days later, we went to meet his family for Christmas and he said: ‘We’re engaged!’ I said: ‘Are we? Oh,’” she said. “It was so confusing. I didn’t know ... I was like: ‘Do I tell my friends?’ And he said: ‘Of course!’

“But it was so confusing, and then I said: ‘That’s not usually what a proposal is like. People usually understand that it’s happening,’” she told Jimmy.

During a previous appearance on the talk show, Melanie revealed her husband played an extra alongside her on The Last of Us.

“He was a stunt person. He trained with the stunt people. And he just did all these amazing stunts,” she said at the time. “It’s like his lifelong dream - he got put in the makeup and he came out of the ground and was falling over. I shot him once!”

The Coyote Ugly actress then showed a photo of the two behind the scenes. Jason was in full costume as he kissed her cheek causing Lynskey to joke that it was “so romantic”.

As it turns out, the HBO series wasn’t the first time the couple - who share a daughter - have worked together.

According to the Daily Mail, they also worked together when he guest starred in Melanie's Hulu series, Candy.

This article was first published by the NZ Herald and is republished here with permission.