Melanie Lynskey talks about painful “breakup” with one-time bestie Kate Winslet

Before the former became an Academy Award and two-time Emmy-winning actress, Kate Winslet and Yellowjackets star Melanie Lynskey were nearly inseparable.

They met on the Oscar-nominated 1994 romantic crime drama Heavenly Creatures, which was co-written and directed by the man who would soon direct the epic Lord of the Rings trilogy, Peter Jackson.

The based-on-real-life movie had the pair playing best friends who become romantically involved, which leads to a murder.

“It was more intense than some love affairs that I have had in my life,” 45-year-old Lynskey once told Time of Winslet, now 47.

“We would write each other letters and talk on the phone all the time,” she expressed. “We were in constant contact for so long. Then around the time of Titanic, her life got crazy because she became a superstar.”

She added, “I admire her so much, though.”

To the Happy Sad Confused podcast on Thursday, Lynskey elaborated, “When I lost touch with Kate, it was more heartbreaking than some breakups that I’ve had. It was so painful, and it wasn’t like anything happened. It’s just she became a gigantic, international movie star and … suddenly, she’d be in Los Angeles and not have time.”

She added, “It happens in relationships. People kind of drift apart, but that was so painful for me.”

That said, Lynskey has had a successful career of her own: She starred in the Drew Barrymore hit Ever After; spent years stealing scenes as Charlie Sheen‘s obsessed neighbor Rose on Two and a Half Men; scored Emmy and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for Yellowjackets, which netted her a Critics Choice Award; and was seen as the calculating Kathleen in HBO’s The Last of Us.