SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers from “It chooses”, episode 8 of “Yellowjackets” Season 2, streaming now on Showtime.
In the closing moments of the “Yellowjackets” Season 1 finale, viewers were told that Lottie was alive and well and somewhere in the world. In the show’s second season, the adult version of Lottie, played by Simone Kessell, is revealed to run a wellness center in upstate New York – and there’s been an air of doubt surrounding from her. Can we trust him or not?
Turns out not.
Lottie’s sessions with her therapist were just a figment of her imagination, and she is still haunted by Queen Antler, as well as her past in the desert.
Episode 8 sees Lottie’s mask really come off, as she reveals to her fellow Yellowjackets that they have to make a blood sacrifice, and that their past has caught up with them.
In a climactic scene, surrounded by Shauna (Melanie Lynskey), Misty (Christina Ricci), Natalie (Juliette Lewis), Taissa (Tawny Cypress) and Van (Lauren Ambrose), Lottie treats them to a Russian roulette tea party. A cup is poisoned, and even she does not know which one.
Kessell spoke with Variety about his own confusion surrounding Lottie’s therapy sessions. “I didn’t know,” admits the actor, who also plays Princess Leia’s mother, Breha Organa, in Disney+’s “Obi-Wan Kenobi” and Blackbeard’s (Taika Waititi) mother in “Our Flag Means Death. from HBO Max.
“My confusion as Simone was very real.”
The therapy reveal heralds a turning point for the character, Kessell says: “She’s out of balance and completely broken down — and something has to change.” We enter another realm of Lottie.
Kessell also shares her perspective on whether women actually suffer from PTSD or if there is some supernatural force at play.
Let’s go back to the therapy sessions for a moment, and Lottie’s therapy being a figment of her imagination. There was something wrong with the framing that hinted at this, but what did you know?
I only found out later. I want to preface it with, we decided the therapist would wear the same color scheme as Lottie in her civilian clothes. She would be in cream, and Lottie would be in cream. We matched them on purpose, so it was subliminal, and it doesn’t click until it does.
Someone said, “Well, you know she’s not real.” And I asked, “Who isn’t real?” I talked to the director about it, and it was great because as an actress, I had the illusion that she was real during that first session. With the second I was a bit confused, and by the third therapy session she was Queen Antler. So my confusion as Simone is very real.
It gives me chills, because Jennifer Lines [who played the therapist] was great. She went out and came back as Queen Antler, and I thought, “Oh wow” — because that was the full costume, and she sits in the chair, and we start the scene again. It’s quite heartbreaking and haunting, because it’s such a vision of what these girls have been through.
So when we see Queen Antler in her full regalia, it means the past has caught up with the present and the wilderness is right there with them. And something has to change, because she really sees it.
We get a hint of this when Natalie is on her knees, and she looks up and she sees a shadow. But for the first time as an audience, we see this as a symbol of the past. I think that’s the big turning point for Lottie in the season that there’s no therapist, she’s out of balance and she’s completely broken down and something has to change. We enter another realm of Lottie.
But aren’t they all unbalanced?
They are all unbalanced. The others are really dealing with this in their own way, and they’re all in a bit of denial, but for the most part, Lottie realizes before the others that something drastic has to happen. It’s more than just a sacrifice, it’s a bloody sacrifice. She is so tormented by the past that Lottie says, “I will kill myself if it means we can all be free of this pain.
When you think about what the girls went through, the trauma and the PTSD, how did you dive into Lottie and unbox her when you didn’t know what was going to happen?
I don’t know. It’s so honest and real. When I can, I take a moment of Courtney Eaton’s Lottie, and put it in my pocket and select: I wonder if that would resonate with her now as a woman in her mid-forties.
There’s a point where Melanie Lynskey’s character, Shauna, has the goat, and she bursts into tears. My instinct was to touch and kiss her, as Lottie is very tactile, but I chose not to. Knowing that Shauna beat the shit out of young Lottie, and Lottie took it as a way to feel alive – if you look at Lottie’s position, and that was my take on that, it was, ‘Give it me something to feel. Bring me back to life, for I am numb. These women are so spoiled. This is the sacrifice Lottie makes as a young woman.
It was just my inner performance, because there’s still a little someone who abused you so badly. Even though Melanie is one of my dearest, I chose not to touch her at that time – and it was a choice. So you’re right, the past is catching up with them in some ways, and as actors it’s our job to find where that plays and where that rhythm is.
When you get fucked up, it’s gonna fuck you up no matter what. How does this affect Lottie, and does she carry all of this with her?
At the start of the season, Nicole [Maines, who plays Lisa] mutilates Juliet [Natalie] with the fork. We see Lottie standing there, looking at her.
All of these rhythms play into where we arrive. Lottie has this way of looking at everyone. Even when Misty arrives, is it a party? She knows what Misty did. She doesn’t know anything about the fentanyl or the reporter, but she knows crazy things have happened in the past: Crystal falling off the edge, the flight recorder black box, she knows all about it. So she presents this. And I try to spice it up in Lottie’s performance, that every moment kind of draws into her like a layer. This is how she decides to speak this layer, how she decides to play this. We can say PTSD or traumatic past, but the truth is that all of that would still be very much alive in you. So it’s just a matter of choosing where to play.
I’ll go back in time, and the girls in the desert, and try to see what I can find. Because those layers are so vital to landing those performances that it’s not a caricature, and it’s real women.
OK, I asked Liz Garbus this after I told him about the making of episode 6, but do you know what the stick figure means?
I think we’re all meant to be confused. It’s the screenwriters again, Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, they’re too cool to go to school. They will say, “It means what it means. I don’t think there is a good and a bad.
I’m on the fence with this, but I don’t think it’s supernatural: I think the monsters are the girls, with everything they’ve been through. What is your position on this?
I agree with you, because I don’t think it’s anything supernatural either. I don’t think Lottie works in any other field – maybe young Lottie does. I think these are all mechanisms they put in place to survive.
I think it’s their karma catching up with them. I think they are so distorted by what happened. There is no therapy that will fix this. Lottie says that – and it’s a turning point for Nat. She says: “You made me live in this community and you can heal me and fix me and I have to see and get over Travis, and now you’re saying there’s no therapy that can fix what he’s got. is inside of all of us?”
About Nat, almost every Friday, Lottie is always trending on Twitter. Are you aware of this?
Courtney texts me and lets me know, “Baby, we’re hot.” Since Elon Musk took over, I’ve been very reluctant, but every once in a while I keep going.
I keep coming back to this Lottie and Nat fanbase, and they love them. They are such thinking fans, and I’m grateful and intrigued by that. Star Wars was different, because it’s like religion – and it’s canon. With “Yellowjackets” the fan base is quite spectacular and the theories are wild.
They will be sad after episode 8, aren’t they?
When Nat and Lottie turn against each other? Everyone thinks we’re going to be the greatest love in the world, and we’re going to get married.
Do you appreciate this reaction?
I am. Juliette has not watched the episodes. She always asks, “What’s the vibe with Lottie and Nat?” Are they in? »
When we were doing the scenes, we were very slightly in space with each other. Again, the writers are so open to anything. No one ever said, “You’re going too far with that tactile intimacy thing.” If anything, it created this buzz and the fans are right. It was fun and exciting to play. I think there was a scene where we sort of threw ourselves at each other, so maybe that’s what they read there. But yeah, I think fans will be devastated when they see this episode.
Lottie’s mask falls off and Natalie wants to kill her. It will be upsetting for many.
This interview has been edited and condensed.