Which actor played Pauline Parker in Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures?

Melanie Lynskey played Pauline Parker in Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures. The 1994 film dramatizes the intense friendship between Parker and Juliet Hulme, two teenagers in Christchurch, New Zealand, whose relationship culminated in the 1954 Parker–Hulme murder case.

Heavenly Creatures was Lynskey’s film debut. Jackson cast her as Pauline after auditions in New Zealand, while Kate Winslet played Juliet Hulme in her first major film role. Their performances were widely praised for showing the characters’ imagination, emotional intensity, and growing isolation without treating the historical events as simple melodrama.

The film uses fantasy sequences to represent the girls’ shared fictional world, including the imagined kingdom of Borovnia. These scenes contrast with the period setting and the increasingly troubling real-life circumstances surrounding their families.

The movie is sometimes confused with a conventional biography of Juliet Hulme alone, but it focuses on the relationship between both teenagers. Hulme later became known as the mystery writer Anne Perry, a fact that is separate from Lynskey’s portrayal of Pauline.