The season 1 finale of “Yellowjackets” left a group of teen survivors reeling from the death of Jackie (Ella Purnell) and facing a long, difficult winter with limited resources and no hope of being rescued.
And things are about to get worse for everyone, especially Shauna.
TheWrap spoke with French Canadian actress Sophie Nellis, who plays Shauna, in a 1996 timeline ahead of the Season 2 premiere — which debuts Friday, March 24 on Showtime’s streaming service, and Sunday, March 26 on Showtime will be broadcast. She is still grieving her best friend and is wracked with feelings of guilt not only for Jackie’s death, but for sleeping with Jackie’s boyfriend Jeff, whose child she is now carrying.
Without getting into any specific spoilers, Nellis told us what we can expect this season as the girls start to go off the rails, and get closer to the gruesome events we teased at the beginning of Season 1.
TheWrap: How would you describe Season 2 in a few words?, For plane crash survivors who are stranded in the woods?
Sophie Nellis: As the season progresses, we are going like…wild, primal survival instincts. And the stakes just get scarier and scarier. I think we’re going to see a lot more conflict within the group. We have played well so far and we are trying to keep it up [together] as a team. And the team will gradually disband. We’re just going to see the pure, the unsophisticated… like they’re losing their grip on reality and what makes sense. They’re missing it. They cannot think straight. They are guided by hunger and this survival instinct. If someone asked you right now, can you eat your hand, you would probably say no, I mean, I don’t think I could ever cut my hand off to eat it for a living. or causing pain to oneself or someone else. But when you break out of it, I think our brains are capable of a lot more than we think.
Is Shona the worst character of this season?
it’s hard to say. This is a big season for Shauna. There’s such a huge arc for the character, which I’m so grateful to have been able to play. And without revealing any spoilers, it doesn’t get any easier for her as the season progresses. That… yes… many hearts are going to be broken for him. But I don’t want to be like, “Shauna has had it the hardest.” There’s a lot more to be discovered with other characters like Lottie (Courtney Eaton). There is definitely some psychosis going on with her character. She may be struggling just as much, but more in the shadows. And Misty’s (Samantha Hanratty) crazy mood swings and temper tantrums are hard to deal with, too. I guess that’s s–t to deal with all of that. But this time, [the most messed-up] Shauna is. She’s lost her best friend and having to deal with that, and being pregnant, is a strange constant reminder of what she’s done. I think the guilt is an underlying emotion that she really can’t get rid of. And at the same time the fear of having that child, which means its possible death, is also a very terrible feeling.
Did you actually film In the Snow for Season 2?
No, on the contrary, we were shooting in the studio this year, which was very convenient. And we were really sweating the whole time. Because we were in this built-in cabin on stage and it was on fire the whole time and our wardrobe was layered upon layer upon layer of clothes. We were sweating bullets. I come from Montreal, Canada, where it’s really cold, but it’s really hard to mimic the coolness when you don’t feel cold. I’ll try to do these fake fevers but yeah, we definitely never felt the cold. The day we finished the show and I went back to Montreal, it was the coldest day I’ve ever had in 40 years. It was literally minus 40 degrees. I passed out for a second, and my teeth were like, they were just crumbling on me. I don’t know english words…
chatter?
Yes! And my jaw was very tight. My nose was running. And my mouth was numb with cold. And there’s something in your body language and the way you speak and you’re kind of frantic because you’re trying to keep yourself warm. Part of me wishes we actually shot in colder locations, because it makes it more realistic. And then a part of me is like, I’m so glad we weren’t moving these six months. But Sophie Thatcher (who plays young Natalie) had to shoot some scenes in Alberta. And it’s a totally different experience shooting with real snow.
In the first season you talked a lot with Melanie Lynskey, who plays adult Shauna, to get through the character. are you still doing this?
No, we didn’t really do that much. I think we’ve got the essence of Shauna and it’s chemistry. I don’t know how or why, but it’s in the first season. And it works and it flows well. I tried to watch these little little ways that she does, like, she’ll bite her lips in a specific way. And I was like, “Oh, maybe I should try to incorporate it into Little Shauna.” And then I tried practicing in the mirror, and I looked super stupid. It didn’t feel natural. I don’t want to overdo it or try too hard. I think it’s hard for her, because she has to embody all of Shauna’s trauma without really knowing what she’s going through.
We’d get the episodes as they came in, and he’d have to do what I played before. And he didn’t even see what I played, because he’s not on set with me. So I think he has it more difficult than me. And I don’t know how, how she does it, where she taps into it. We always try to go out to dinner, and then we talk about personal things more than we [talk about Shauna],
Sometimes we do table reads and that’s the only glimpse I get of what scene Melanie is going to play. Even in table read, she is very good. I’m delivering my lines in the most platonic way and she’s giving the most and it’s great. and he’s not [in costume] or doing at all. And it gave me a really cool lens to see more of the weather.
Do you have to mentally prepare for some of these intense scenes in the woods?
We get the script last minute, so it’s not like I can really prepare for it. It’s not like in episode one, I know what’s going on in episode two. So it works for Shauna, because Shauna doesn’t know what’s going to happen. Every day is a new day and she cannot predict what she will have to deal with.
,Yellowjacket Season 2 premieres Friday, March 24 on Showtime Streaming Service and Sunday, March 26 on Showtime. Episodes will drop weekly on Fridays at 12:01 AM PT/ET before their linear airing each week on Sundays at 9 PM ET/PT.
