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Tag: Yellowjackets

  • Molly Ringwald Joins Cast of Beloved Showtime Show’s Final Season, Role Revealed

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    Molly Ringwald has joined the cast of Yellowjackets Season 4.

    Ringwald is known for starring in a number of John Hughes films that were released in the 1980s, including 1984’s Sixteen Candles, 1985’s The Breakfast Club, and 1986’s Pretty in Pink. In more recent years, Ringwald played Mrs. Flynn in the Kissing Booth movies and will soon be seen in a new rom-com releasing this August titled One Night Only.

    Who will Molly Ringwald play in Yellowjackets Season 4?

    Per Deadline, it has now been announced that Ringwald has been cast in Yellowjackets Season 4, which will be the final entry in the popular Showtime series. Ringwald will play a character named Vicky, who is Van’s mom and a recently “recovered alcoholic trying her best to course correct her past.”

    Creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson previously said in a statement about Yellowjackets ending with Season 4, “After three incredible seasons, and great consideration, we’re excited to announce that we will be bringing the story of Yellowjackets to its twisted conclusion in this fourth and final season. We’ve always known there would come a point when the story would tell us it wants to end, and it’s our belief that our job — our responsibility — is to listen. 

    “Telling this emotional, wild, and deeply human story has been a profoundly meaningful experience and a true honor for us, and we’re so very grateful to the brilliant cast, crew and writers who have bravely gone on the journey with us to bring it to life. Most of all, we want to thank the fans who have stuck with us through every moment, mystery and meal — the Hive is nothing without you! We can’t wait to share the final chapter with you and hope you find it…delicious.”

    A premiere date for Yellowjackets Season 4 has not yet been set, though it is expected to arrive at some point in 2024.

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    Brandon Schreur

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  • Hit Paramount+ TV Show Ending With Season 4

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    Five months after creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson’s Yellowjackets secured a renewal order from Paramount+, it has now been confirmed that the hit psychological thriller will officially be concluding its run with the upcoming fourth season. The creative team is currently targeting a 2026 production start date.

    What did the Yellowjackets creators say about the Paramount+ show’s impending conclusion?

    In their statement, Lyle and Nickerson expressed how grateful they are towards the cast, crew, and writers, as well as the loyal fans of Yellowjackets who have believed in the show’s story since the beginning.

    “After three incredible seasons, and great consideration, we’re excited to announce that we will be bringing the story of Yellowjackets to its twisted conclusion in this fourth and final season,” Lyle and Nickerson’s statement reads. “We’ve always known there would come a point when the story would tell us it wants to end, and it’s our belief that our job — our responsibility — is to listen. Telling this emotional, wild, and deeply human story has been a profoundly meaningful experience and a true honor for us, and we’re so very grateful to the brilliant cast, crew, and writers who have bravely gone on the journey with us to bring it to life. Most of all, we want to thank the fans who have stuck with us through every moment, mystery, and meal — the Hive is nothing without you! We can’t wait to share the final chapter with you and hope you find it … delicious.”

    Yellowjackets currently stars Melanie Lynskey, Tawny Cypress, Christina Ricci, Lauren Ambrose, Sophie Nélisse, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sophie Thatcher, Samantha Hanratty, Liv Hewson, Courtney Eaton, Elijah Wood, Hilary Swank, and more. The series is created and executive-produced by showrunners Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, with Jonathan Lisco serving as its showrunner. It is a production by Lionsgate Television. Since its debut in 2021, the show has maintained its Certified Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes for the past three seasons.

    (Source: THR)

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    Maggie Dela Paz

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  • ‘Yellowjackets’ Star Liv Hewson Scoffs At ‘Disgust’ They’ve Received Over Top Surgery

    ‘Yellowjackets’ Star Liv Hewson Scoffs At ‘Disgust’ They’ve Received Over Top Surgery

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    Liv Hewson doesn’t have time for people’s “knee-jerk” reactions to the actor’s desire to live authentically.

    The “Yellowjackets” star, who identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, recently showed off their top surgery for a profile in Teen Vogue, baring their nipple and surgical scars for the magazine’s photo shoot.

    That kind of badass decision is emblematic of the 27-year-old performer’s overall attitude toward people who oppose gender-affirming surgery.

    “When people talk about gender-affirming surgery using words like ‘mutilation,’ that’s not very nice,” Hewson told Teen Vogue. “Is that how you think about people who’ve had surgery for other things? It’s a disgust reaction, and I do not take disgust into account as a legitimate point of discourse.”

    “I don’t have to entertain it and I’m not going to,” the Australian actor said. “It’s a waste of everybody’s time, it’s knee-jerk, it’s not grounded in reality, and it’s not useful.”

    Hewson at Showtime’s “Yellowjackets” Season 2 Emmys event in May.

    Leon Bennett via Getty Images

    Hewson also recalled a time when someone left a shocking comment on a photo where “you could see the edges of my top surgery scars.”

    Hewson said the commenter wrote “something along the lines of, ‘This is like women cutting their fingers off.’ At first that really disturbed me. I was like, ‘Man, that is just a horrible thing to say.’ And then it suddenly struck me as a little bit funny.”

    “I am not going to entertain anybody’s disgust over my body,” Hewson said. “It’s my body, it’s healthy and strong and beautiful, and there’s nothing wrong with it. Point blank.”

    Hewson has only recently risen to fame thanks to their stellar performance as a younger version of the character Van (played as an adult by Lauren Ambrose) in the mystery-driven Showtime drama. But they’re already using their name recognition to advocate on behalf of people who are gender-nonconforming.

    In April, Hewson made headlines when they told Variety they’d opted out of this year’s Emmys race because there’s no category where they truly fit in.

    Showtime said earlier this year that the network wanted to submit Hewson for an Outstanding Supporting Actress award.

    “There’s not a place for me in the acting categories,” Hewson told Variety. “It would be inaccurate for me to submit myself as an actress. It neither makes sense for me to be lumped in with the boys. It’s quite straightforward and not that loaded. I can’t submit myself for this because there’s no space for me.”

    To read Hewson’s profile in full, head over to Teen Vogue.

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  • Why So Many TV Shows Have Viral Dance Numbers

    Why So Many TV Shows Have Viral Dance Numbers

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    On Netflix, Wednesday went goth with The Cramps’ “Goo Goo Muck” and Umbrella Academy got loose with Kenny Loggins’s “Footloose.”

    Hulu’s The Great rocked out with AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long,” while Reservation Dogs celebrated ’90s R&B with Brandy’s “Sittin’ Up In My Room.”

    Also: Pete Davidson spotlighted Jimmy Soul’s “If You Wanna Be Happy” on his semi-autobiographical Peacock series, Bupkis; Prime Video’s comic book series The Boys went old-school Hollywood musical with George Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm”; and Showtime’s Yellowjackets brought in avant-garde theater legend John Cameron Mitchell for its own bird-brained idea. And though these scenes might be scripted to look like they come out of nowhere, a more premeditated moment in the season finale of Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso saw football team AFC Richmond channeling The Sound of Music to say “so long, farewell.”

    In this post-needle-drop, anything-can-go-viral world of prestige TV, it’s great to have good acting, writing, and directing. But sometimes it’s even better to have a good beat you can dance to. The Great star Elle Fanning says there’s power to the medium of dance because it “can describe things and convey emotions that we all feel…especially when it’s wild and free.” Fanning, who has a background in ballet, worked with choreographer Polly Bennett to give her character, Catherine the Great, the cathartic release she needs after a particularly trying 10 episodes that include the death of her husband, Peter (Nicholas Hoult).

    “It’s almost like an exorcism out of her body because she’s put up with so much this season,” Fanning says.

    Make Your Own Kind of Music

    Jason Orley, who directed all but two episodes of Davidson’s Bupkis, says that show was always going to find ways to celebrate music simply because “Pete is obsessed with music.” In collaborating with the comedian and series showrunner/co-creator Judah Miller, they wanted “this undercurrent of joy” to thread through a series that is otherwise about heavy topics like depression and death. (The series was originally meant to open with the song “Maybe” from the musical Annie, and the first episode includes costar Joe Pesci playing The Drifters’ “This Magic Moment,” a scene that grew out of an unscripted jam session).

    In the sixth episode, “ISO,” which Orley cowrote with Davidson and Miller and features the Jimmy Soul dance, the character is lonely because he’s away from his family for the winter holidays. After scoring some drugs from teens working at a local bowling alley, he feels momentary relief. A spotlight shines on him in an otherwise dark set and the dancing starts.

    Orley says it was Davidson’s idea for the number, which came together in a mere 45 minutes after a long day of filming; otherwise, the scene felt too sad and the character’s motivation for the drugs is that he wants them so that he doesn’t feel sad. Though they recorded the dance to Irving Berlin’s “Putting on the Ritz,” Orley says it was changed in post to “If You Wanna Be Happy” because the latter song starts with lots of enthusiastic clapping and a “chorus of people talking,” so that it felt like the character wasn’t alone.

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    Whitney Friedlander

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  • Christina Ricci on That Devastating ‘Yellowjackets’ Finale: “It Was Torturous”

    Christina Ricci on That Devastating ‘Yellowjackets’ Finale: “It Was Torturous”

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    Yellowjackets season two ended the same way season one did: with the death of a major character. But unlike last year’s chilling ending for Jackie (Ella Purnell), this year’s finale death takes place in the present day, removing one of the 2021 storyline’s biggest stars from the board: Juliette Lewis’s Natalie Scatorccio.

    Directed by Karyn Kusama and written by Ameni Rozsa, “Storytelling” puts the adult Yellowjackets in the wilderness, if not The Wilderness, with murder on their minds. “It chooses,” Lottie (Simone Kessell) told her fellow plane-crash survivors in the previous episode, pitching a ritualistic sacrifice to solve all their problems, for old time’s sake. The finale sees the Yellowjackets trying and ultimately failing to fight their savage instincts, hunting and nearly killing Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) in the process. 

    Before they can sink their knives into their prey, Lottie’s disciple Lisa (Nicole Maines) arrives on the scene, gun in hand, determined to end the madness. Natalie, having grown close with Lisa over the course of the season, attempts to defuse the situation. Unfortunately, Christina Ricci’s Misty is set on doing the same thing, albeit with a barbiturate-filled needle. Though she intends to stick Lisa with it, a scuffle ensues, and Natalie gets in the way. Before Misty knows it, she’s lethally injected her friend in Lisa’s stead. Just like that, Natalie’s gone, accidentally killed at Misty’s hand.

    “We were all really devastated by it,” Ricci tells Vanity Fair. “We’ve all bonded like sisters at this point. We’ve been through so much. We’ve had fights, we’ve reconciled, really like sisters. It was devastating, shooting that scene, holding Juliette while she dies…. It was torturous.”

    Natalie’s death in the modern timeline comes right as we learn a major revelation about the 1996 version of the character, played by Sophie Thatcher. Who is the Antler Queen? Turns out, it was Natalie all along. The reveal about Natalie’s past status, paired with Natalie’s fatal ending in the present, paves the way for Misty’s troubling future. Ahead, Ricci talks with VF about Misty’s role in her best friend’s death, that major Antler Queen reveal, and whether Misty really believes in the power of the wilderness. 

    Vanity Fair: Misty spent all of season two trying to save Natalie, only to end up killing her. What did you make of the twist? 

    Christina Ricci: It makes a lot of sense for the character. A lot of the most harmful decisions Misty makes remind me of impulsive things you do as a child, when you don’t realize the consequences in the moment. I remember being a little kid and wanting something. You’d do something you weren’t supposed to do so you could have the thing, not realizing the thing you did to get the thing is actually so terrible, and causes so many problems, and is completely inappropriate and not okay. Even with [Misty destroying] the black box [after the plane crash], that wasn’t an evil, devious move. She wasn’t trying to destroy everyone’s lives by keeping them there. It’s just, finally, people are nice to her. People are even fucking talking to her. And in that moment, she just wants more of it. It’s just a purely immature, selfish act. Impulsive. 

    You see it again with [Crystal’s death in episode 5]. [Misty] realizes, “This is not going to be good for me,” and takes a strong action that isn’t good for anybody—ultimately, certainly not for herself. I think this is another one of those impulsive kinds of decisions and actions that ends really badly. But she was trying to kill Lisa so Lisa would not harm Natalie. It wasn’t an evil intention, it was just selfish. She’s trying to protect her friend, the thing she wants, the thing she covets. That’s her toy, you know?

    What can you say about shooting the scene?

    It was really hard. Sometimes when you’re shooting a very emotional scene and there are ten other cast members who don’t have to cry and can just joke around and have fun, it makes it really hard! You have to be in this place. It was difficult, getting to where I needed to be. But Karyn was so amazing, and worked with me and Juliette about how to execute it in a way that was the most helpful. But it was tough. It was really upsetting.

    Once you read the script and you knew what was coming, how did you and Juliette cut the tension? 

    There was no tension about it at all. The only thing any of us felt was sad that she wouldn’t be a part of the show anymore. She and I have gotten to a place over the course of two seasons where we really love each other. We’re friends. We’re both there for each other, to support each other through hard things and care deeply for each other. There was never any kind of bad feelings. 

    It’s a huge swing for the narrative. We know many of the Yellowjackets in the ’90s aren’t going to make it, but I was foolish enough to think we were going to stick with the women of the 2021 storyline for the duration. 

    It’s so interesting to hear that. Even in the first season, as we got to the end, everybody was like, “Am I getting killed?” All the adults, too! Even at the end of this season, I was like, “Wait, do I die? Is Misty going to die?”

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    Josh Wigler

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  • Could AI Write This Article?

    Could AI Write This Article?

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    Last week, social media erupted when the Writers Guild of America went on strike. Didn’t hear about it? Well, you will soon.

    If you don’t think the WGA Strike will affect you, consider this: what will happen when none of your favorite TV shows and movies are released when you expected they would be? What will happen when you tune in for a mindless episode of late-night comedy and there’s … nothing? What will happen when shows like Abbott Elementary are forced to shoot fewer episodes for the next season? Riots.

    So, I have your attention now? Good. I’m sure you have questions…and I’m here to answer them.

    Why Are The Writers On Strike?

    This isn’t our first writers’ strike. From November 2007 to February 2008, American TV writers went on strike for the first time this century. This resulted in a $1.5 billion impact on the Los Angeles economy and cost the U.S. entertainment industry $500 million…And someone’s telling us we don’t need writers?

    Essentially, the writers need to be paid more. The East and West branches of the WGA represent the writers of 11,500 movies and television series. And the WGA negotiates writer contracts with Hollywood studios roughly every three years. This year, things didn’t go so well.

    While the studios believe they made a fair appraisal of the compensation increase, the writers believe they are being undervalued. With the rise of Artificial Intelligence, studios are mulling over whether or not writers are truly essential anymore.

    The studios state that this is not the best time for the writers to see a major change in compensation. Meanwhile, the writers argue that streaming platforms have increased episode counts from the standard 8-10 run to close to 20 episodes a season and this severely cuts into their work lives.

    But Why Not Use AI?

    Look, I get it. AI helped you write that essay you procrastinated until the very last possible moment to write (don’t worry, I won’t tell). It generated that photo of you in 1800’s garb. It can make almost anything look real (it terrifies me to no end).

    But what AI can’t do is capture true human emotion in the ways that a writer can. While Chat GPT may get you 800 words, it surely won’t tell the truth about a certain brand or product. AI isn’t funny, doesn’t have a sense of humor…in other words, breaking news: robots can’t relate to us as well as humans can.

    I don’t know how we got to the point of such laziness and greed that we actually entertain the notion that writers are no longer critical in the wake of Artificial Intelligence. It’s insipid. But I do know that Artificial Intelligence can’t tell you about the time they flew cross-country only to crash a rental car in Los Angeles and almost got banned from the state after a Harry Styles concert.

    Who Is Affected By The Writers’ Strike?

    If this madness continues, the entire planet will be affected in some way or another. And this insanity looks like it’s going to go on for a while. Late-night talk shows have all stopped shooting – which means no one’s getting paid unless the hosts are paying out of pocket, and many are. Late-night programming is the most immediate effect of the strike.

    Meanwhile, films can halt production, but since movies take over a year to produce, release dates will just be pushed back. However, daily running shows like soap operas – a dying industry in itself – will run out of episodes to release within a month.

    With no one writing at all right now, there are no new seasons in the works. Netflix shows like Big Mouth, Stranger Things, and Unstable have shuttered their writers’ rooms. And on May 2, Abbott Elementary scribes weren’t allowed to start working on the next. Yellowjackets and Billions among other popular shows have also paused writing due to the strike.

    As you can see, we are about to face some major consequences. Celebs and the rich and famous are picketing with the writers, where you can see faces like Quinta Brunson, Dan Levy, Rob Lowe, and more boasting signs for the WGA. Late-night hosts like Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel are paying their staff out-of-pocket for the time being.

    What Now?

    Writers are an essential part of storytelling, so we stand with the WGA and hope they get their bag ASAP. Plus, I will never forgive the Hollywood studios if I don’t see Quinta Brunson on my screen for endless-endless episodes. Get the deal done, Hollywood.

    So the answer is no, AI can’t write like a real writer does. AI can’t create your favorite show the way humans can. And without our brilliant writers, there would be no shows.

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    Jai Phillips

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  • Jasmin Savoy Brown Is the Queen of Community

    Jasmin Savoy Brown Is the Queen of Community

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    Top, $2,595, bandeau top, $2,195, skirt, Giorgio Armani. Ring, Cartier. Mules, Coperni, $628.

    Greg Williams
    hollywood rising 2023

    This is a message for the directors: turn your movie musical and comedy scripts over to Jasmin Savoy Brown. The modern scream queen wants to know: “Why the fuck do I keep playing these parts? I guess I’m good at it,” she says, “but I want to do some comedy. Or put me in as Jenna in [a movie of the musical] Waitress.”

    It’s uncanny, almost, that Savoy Brown, 29, is ready to leave the horror sphere behind, even as she’s killing it. She’s currently seen battling through the wilderness in Showtime’s Yellowjackets and is set to co-star with Tatiana Maslany in Josh Ruben’s horror film Green Bank. The young actress just gleefully returned for her second appearance in the Scream franchise as Mindy Meeks-Martin, the guts-and-gore-obsessed twin of Mason Gooding’s Chad.

    Savoy Brown wasn’t dreaming about starring in horror films in her youth. The California native made up songs in the grocery store and did a lot of musical theater (we spent more than a moment gushing over her favorite musicals, including Memphis, In The Heights, and Come From Away). And while she’s loved being part of Scream—“All three options in a Scream movie are solid. You either die, and it’s going to be an epic death. You survive, and that’s amazing, or you’re the killer. So, no matter which hand I’m dealt, every time I’m happy”—she has critiques for the genre. “I was never interested in horror because it was just so straight and white,” she says. “That’s just not interesting to me, aside from my one white woman show a year, which was Big Little Lies and then The White Lotus.”

    jasmin savoy brown in scream vi

    Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding in Scream VI.

    Philippe Bossé//Paramount

    Her character in Scream VI pushes backs on the tropes. Mindy is the first queer role in the franchise, and in the most recent installment, she and her girlfriend Anika have become fan favorites. “Mindy’s queerness has nothing to do with her character arc, and no one cares. It’s such a big deal, because it’s not a big deal at all,” Savoy Brown says. “I love the idea that some people who would not normally interact with a character like myself are now meeting Mindy in that franchise and hopefully in a way that is pleasant for them.”

    There is something to be said for taking up space in your workplace as all that you are.”

    Savoy Brown also plays a Black lesbian, young Taissa Turner, in Yellowjackets. The significance of that representation is not lost on her, especially as both her most prominent characters share identities she owns. “It’s allowed me the space to not have to hide, even psychologically,” she says. “There is something to be said for taking up space in your workplace as all that you are.”

    Currently in its second season, Yellowjackets crashed Showtime with its premiere episode and set record-breaking numbers for the network. The series is set in two timelines: the past, where a high school soccer team’s plane to the national tournament crashes in the Canadian wilderness, and the present, years after the disaster where the events in the wild begin to haunt the remaining survivors. The first season had audiences playing a “did they or didn’t they?” game, as the older version of Savoy Brown’s character (played by Tawny Cypress), ran for public office and was accused of cannibalizing a teammate those years ago.

    In season 2, the show gets bloodier and gorier. Audiences—spoiler alert—finally find out a piece of what really happened in those woods. The girls do eat their teammate, Jackie, who died from extreme cold at the end of the first season. While filming the scene, many of the actresses threw up.

    Throughout the whole series, the actors are confronted with intense or psychologically damaging situations. To help them film the hardest moments, the show had an on-set intimacy coordinator. “It is a mindfuck to ‘eat’ a person,” Savoy Brown says of filming the nauseating moment, revealing the “flesh” they consumed was actually jackfruit stuffed inside a body-like figure. “If someone got an upset stomach, we’d make fun of them, but then go see if they were okay. But I will never eat jackfruit again.”

    jasmin savoy brown

    Savoy Brown plays young Taissa Turner in Yellowjackets.

    Kailey Schwerman

    Whether it be her costars, family, friends, or queer comrades, community is at the heart of Savoy Brown’s being. She only has gushing words for her castmates, and spends time talking about how Scream’s Courtney Cox has become a close friend. Her dad was a musician in Philadelphia and gave her a passion for music, something she’s grateful for. She’s released a few singles and plans to release more. Her friend Lucy Dacus has shown her the music world and asked her to star in her recent music video for “Night Shift.” Her Los Angeles supporters helped her with self-tapes and acting workshops. She credits Academy Award winner Regina King, her co-star in The Leftovers, as a major mentor. “She’s just the best person you’ll ever meet,” Savoy Brown says.

    As we talk on Zoom, she prioritizes her people once more. She’s currently long-distance with her girlfriend, a relationship she hard-launched on Instagram weeks after our call. Her girlfriend has COVID-19, and Savoy Brown pauses our talk to make sure her gift of get-well-soon dumplings was received. “Community is more important than anything,” she declares, “and having people you can call to send you dumplings when you have COVID.”

    Hair by Vernon François for Redken; makeup by Karo Kangas for Westman Atelier; produced by Rhianna Rule.

    A version of this story appears in the May 2023 issue of ELLE.

    GET THE LATEST ISSUE OF ELLE

    Headshot of Samuel Maude

    Samuel is the Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief at ELLE Magazine. His interests include music, theater, books, video games, and anything to do with Taylor Swift. He famously broke both his arms at the same time in fourth grade. 

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  • Melanie Lynskey Says the End of Friendship With Kate Winslet Was “More Heartbreaking Than Some Breakups I’ve Had”

    Melanie Lynskey Says the End of Friendship With Kate Winslet Was “More Heartbreaking Than Some Breakups I’ve Had”

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    Think back to sleepaway camp, and the pals you made there. Intense bonds are formed over relatively short periods of time. Inside jokes are born, friendship bracelets are weaved. Promises are made to write every day! Remain friends forever! As anyone who’s found an old crumpled note in the back of a desk drawer full of inscrutable references written by a person whose name you vaguely remember can attest, those bonds don’t always last. Movie sets, it turns out, can be kind of the same way. Melanie Lynskey confirmed that this can also be the case on-set, remembering the painful way she learned that lesson. 

    In a wide-ranging conversation on Josh Horowitz’s podcast, Happy Sad Confused this week, Lynskey opened up about her first big role, in Peter Jackson’s 1994 film Heavenly Creatures. She starred opposite Kate Winslet in both of their feature film debuts, playing a pair of intensely bonded girls who plan and commit a murder together. Winslet and Lynskey, too, naturally bonded on set. It didn’t last. 

    “When I lost touch with Kate it was more heartbreaking than some breakups that I’ve had,” Lynskey said. “It was so painful. It wasn’t like anything happened, she just became a gigantic international movie star, and she didn’t have a lot of time, and then suddenly she’d be in Los Angeles and not have time.” 

    Eventually, even Winslet’s jaunts through LA didn’t even have the attempt to make plans. “When I was living here, and she’d be there and I wouldn’t hear from her,” Lynskey said. “It sort of gradually happened. It happens in relationships, people kind of drift apart, but it was so painful for me.” 

    Lynskey and Winslet have both been working consistently in the nearly 30 years since breaking out in Heavenly Creatures, but, Lynskey revealed, they’ve never reconnected. The last time she says she saw Winslet, in fact, was at the 2009 premiere for Winslet’s then-husband Sam Mendes’ Away We Go, in which Lynskey had a supporting role.

    “That’s the last time I saw her,” she said, not going into further detail on whether they spoke, or if they were simply in the same theater at the same time. 

    She did call Winslet “a huge inspiration for me” in how she handled the media attention that came with her early fame, particularly cruel comments about her body. 

    “I know she’s a very, very confident person, but everyone’s sensitive, and she’s very sensitive,” Lynskey said. “ And the way she was dissected and talked about, I remember at the time being so furious on her behalf, especially because, like, Kate Winslet is now in the world. Kate Winslet is doing movies, and you’re getting to witness that talent. This is like a life-changing actor, an actor that comes along once in a generation. Just focus on that. And also—she was tiny, and still is tiny. It infuriated me so much and I just was always amazed by how gracefully she handled all of it.”

    Lynskey, too, has faced criticism about her body even recently, responding to shaming comments about her appearance on The Last of Us made by Adrianne Curry. “I am supposed to be SMART, ma’am. I don’t need to be muscly,” she said in one of a string of tweets in response. She’s also been open about the eating disorder she struggled with from the age of 12. 

    Winslet wasn’t Lynskey’s only platonic showmance that didn’t last. “It happened a couple of times,” she said, including one actor who told her “I don’t stay friends with actors” after Lynskey expressed her fondness at wrap. 

    “I was so shocked by it,” she said. “This woman had been working longer than me and was used to, ‘no, we move on. This was just a couple months of our life.’ But I was so sensitive, I was always so injured by losing these great loves I was having, and you know, it got easier.”

    Hollywood isn’t all cliquishness and fleeting connection, however. During the interview, Lynskey talked about taking on her role in The Last of Us at the bequest of her friend Craig Mazin, co-creator of the massively popular show. They first met playing the party game Mafia, she said, and then “we became very good Mafia friends.” She went on to tease her strategy (“I’m not very good at lying”), but wouldn’t reveal it, by the way. All she’ll tell you is that she is very, very good at the game. “Someone said to me, I’ll never trust you again.”

    Now, with roles on shows like Yellowjackets and The Last Of Us, Lynskey is more visible than ever, but reminds audiences that she’s not new here. “It is funny to have like a 30-year career,” she said, and have people frame her success with a wink: “But now…”

    “I’m proud of my career,” she said. “I worked really hard! I was a working actor. For me, that was all I’d ever wanted. My dreams had come true.” 

    A representative for Winslet declined to comment.

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    Kase Wickman

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  • That Yellowjackets Cannibal Feast Might Unlock the Antler Queen’s Identity

    That Yellowjackets Cannibal Feast Might Unlock the Antler Queen’s Identity

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    “When things get tough out there, those girls are going to need someone to guide them.” When Coach Bill Martinez said these words to Jackie Taylor all the way back in the Yellowjackets pilot, he had no idea that both he and Jackie would be dead within the next few weeks neither could he have suspected the even darker fate awaiting the Yellowjackets team captain, who has now been revealed as the Showtime drama’s first cannibalism casualty. Under most circumstances, getting eaten by your friends would feel like a pretty conclusive end to your story. But this is Yellowjackets, and despite becoming a dinner buffet, Jackie’s story feels like it’s just heating up. 

    In season two’s second episode, “Edible Complex,” Shauna—having already eaten one of Jackie’s ears (a casual sentence one can only comfortably utter about Yellowjackets)—finally agrees to do away with Jackie’s body. With the ground still too frozen to bury her, the team settles instead on a funeral pyre. But even that plan takes a huge turn when something interferes. Call it the winds of winter; call it a malevolent spirit. (The show is certainly not naming names yet.) But whatever force exists out there in the wild brings a huge sheet of snow down upon Jackie’s burning corpse, effectively stopping the cooking process just in time to turn her into a five-course meal. 

    Jackie’s consumption finally advances the show’s cannibalism narrative, a plot point introduced in the pilot’s very first scenes. In addition to fueling the story, it literally fuels her teammates, who are starving through a cold and hungry winter. But beyond both points, Jackie’s transformation into a human holiday roast advances something else: the great mystery of the Antler Queen. 

    Folks keeping score at home know all about the Antler Queen, even though we actually know precious little about the horned figure. The Antler Queen first appears in the series premiere presiding over the consumption of Pit Girl, but we still don’t know who she is or what she represents. 

    There’s no shortage of Antler Queen candidates. By the end of season one, most theories pointed at Lottie Matthews, who seems poised to use her visionary powers to direct her teammates to eat each other to stay alive—not to mention as a ritualistic sacrifice to the powers that be. 

    But Lottie’s ascension isn’t yet canon, and other Yellowjackets still seem like Antler Queen possibilities as well. There’s Taissa, clearly a leader in her own right both as a teenager and an adult—all of which obscures a darker side that eats dirt and tries to chew off her girlfriend’s face. 

    There’s Shauna, whose mercilessness as an adult (Adam who?) suggests she would be willing to lead the charge on the merciless consumption of her friends. (Let’s not forget Shauna kicked this party off by eating Jackie’s frozen ear in the season two premiere.) 

    Really, just about everyone’s still a contender for the Antler Queen job, other than Misty—the only character we have definitively seen unmasked next to the cannibal cult leader. And Jackie’s fate points at another possibility: that the Antler Queen could be Jackie herself.

    To advance this theory forward, we have to look all the way back to one of the show’s earliest points of origin: Lord of the Flies.

    Creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson have made no secret about the show’s connections with William Golding’s seminal novel. Lord of the Flies gets its name from the titular rotting pig head who communes with Simon, a visionary in his own right. Given their almost mystical connections to their surroundings, Simon and Lottie are easily analogous. Her precognitive abilities are what make Lottie such an obvious contender for the Antler Queen’s throne.

    More often than not, though, Lottie serves as a vessel rather than someone with her own clear understanding of her powers, whatever they may be. The blood in the tea, her healing touch with Travis, the community she leads as an adult—all of these things feel less like Lottie in control, and more like something moving through Lottie. 

    Enter the proverbial pig head: Jackie. 

    When the Yellowjackets exit the cabin and find Jackie’s perfectly charred body, there is an immediate sense of awe and reverence, specifically from Shauna. Already Simon-like in her own right, what with her connection to Jackie’s ghost, Shauna utters maybe the most important line in the episode, as she hungrily looks down at her best friend’s barbecued form: “She wants us to.” These words are presented as if spoken by Jackie herself, reminiscent of how Ralph, Jack, Piggy, and the rest of the crash-landed boys revered and communed with the Lord of the Flies. Except, in the case of Yellowjackets, the Lord of the Flies may go by another name: the Antler Queen, a.k.a., Jackie.

    “When things get tough out there, those girls are going to need someone to guide them,” Coach Martinez once said to Jackie. If her devoured form becomes something of a spirit guide for the team, then consider the coach’s prophecy fulfilled.

    If Jackie is the Antler Queen, how do we explain the fact that we saw the Antler Queen in the pilot? The same way we explain the fantastical way the show depicted the girls eating Jackie, or even how someone like Lottie sees tree stumps in the forest and envisions them as altars. 

    Yellowjackets also has a proven track record of mixing reality and surreality, which leads us to another ghoulish possibility: Jackie’s skeletal remains could be repurposed as an idol of sorts donning an antler crown, a Lord of the Flies in her own right.

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    Josh Wigler

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  • ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 2 Teaser Hints At Supernatural ‘Darkness’

    ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 2 Teaser Hints At Supernatural ‘Darkness’

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    By Brent Furdyk.
    Published:

    The first teaser for the upcoming second season of the critically acclaimed Showtime thriller “Yellowjackets” has just dropped.

    In the new teaser, Lottie (new series regular Simone Kessell) is instructing Natalie (Juliette Lewis) through a guided meditation. “Listen to my voice and watch the light,” she tells her. “Allow yourself to go back, no matter how difficult it gets. What do you see?”


    READ MORE:
    Lauren Ambrose On Joining ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 2 And Final Season Of ‘Servant’ (Exclusive)

    As Natalie closes her eyes and focuses, she replies, “Darkness. We brought it back with us.”

    Also joining the cast as a series regular for the second season is Lauren Ambrose (“Six Feet Under”, “Servant”), with Elijah Wood (“The Lord of the Rings” trilogy) appearing in a season-long guest arc.

    “Equal parts survival epic, psychological horror story and coming-of-age drama, ‘Yellowjackets’ is the saga of a team of wildly talented high school girls soccer players who become the (un)lucky survivors of a plane crash deep in the remote northern wilderness,” reads the synopsis. “The series chronicles their descent from a complicated but thriving team to savage clans, while also tracking the lives they’ve attempted to piece back together nearly 25 years later, proving that the past is never really past and what began out in the wilderness is far from over.”


    READ MORE:
    ‘Yellowjackets’ Adds Melanie Lynskey’s Husband Jason Ritter As A Guest Star In Season 2

    In addition to stars Lewis, Christina Ricci, Melanie Lynskey and Tawny Cypress, season two also stars Sophie Nélisse (“The Book Thief”), Jasmin Savoy Brown (“The Leftovers”), Sophie Thatcher (“Prospect”), Samantha Hanratty (“Shameless”), Courtney Eaton (“Mad Max: Fury Road”), Liv Hewson (“Santa Clarita Diet”), Steven Krueger (“The Originals”), Warren Kole (“Shades of Blue”) and Kevin Alves.

    The second season debuts on Sunday, Mar. 26.

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    Brent Furdyk

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  • 2023 TV Shows: The Premiere Dates to Look Out For

    2023 TV Shows: The Premiere Dates to Look Out For

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    This show debuted during the pandemic at a time when everyone needed the warm embrace of its earnest, feel-good attitude, but Ted Lasso can’t maintain that affection unless it’s honest about the fact that not everyone approaches life with an open heart and good intentions. Sometimes people are cruel, operate in bad faith, or simply don’t care. Coach Ted and the characters who have been won over by him remain a type of antidote to that cynicism, but to avoid becoming a Hallmark card, this show is likely to get much more real, much more edgy, and maybe a little colder before it warms things up again. —A.B.

    NEW SHOWS WORTH LOOKING OUT FOR

    Ahsoka (Disney+)

    Premiere date TBD

    The last time we visited Ted Lasso–land, we were left on a kind of cliff-hanger, a villain origin story, with former towel-boy Nate (‎Nick Mohammed) betraying Jason Sudeikis’s nice-guy coach by leaking details of his emotional breakdown to the press, then departing to work for a rival team. 

    This show debuted during the pandemic at a time when everyone needed the warm embrace of its earnest, feel-good attitude, but Ted Lasso can’t maintain that affection unless it’s honest about the fact that not everyone approaches life with an open heart and good intentions. Sometimes people are cruel, operate in bad faith, or simply don’t care. Coach Ted and the characters who have been won over by him remain a type of antidote to that cynicism, but to avoid becoming a Hallmark card, this show is likely to get much more real, much more edgy, and maybe a little colder before it warms things up again. —A.B.

    All the Light We Cannot See (Netflix)

    Premiere date TBD

    What happens when Shawn Levy, director of Free Guy and the Night at the Museum films, takes on a Pulitzer Prize–winning book set in World War II–era France? That’s the fascinating question at the heart of All the Light We Cannot See, a miniseries adaptation of Anthony Doerr’s moving novel, which will star Mark Ruffalo and Hugh Laurie alongside newcomer Aria Mia Loberti. As much as Netflix has succeeded with buzzy TV shows, they haven’t gone for too many high-toned literary adaptations. Could this be the show to get them a seat at the table that HBO has dominated for so long? —K.R.

    The Diplomat (Netflix)

    Premiere date TBD

    It’s unclear when exactly this new political thriller from West Wing and Homeland alum Debora Cahn will be out, but given that filming took place in London this year, there’s a good chance that Keri Russell will be back on our screens soon. In her first TV role since The Americans, Russell will play a career diplomat who finds herself in over her head after she lands a big new job. Rufus Sewell (The Man in the White Castle) and Ali Ahn (Billions) also star. —N.J.

    Full Circle (HBO Max)

    Limited series premiere date TBD

    In the time it has taken you to read this, Steven Soderbergh has already written, directed, and edited four to six new projects, all of which will soon be appearing on a streaming service near you. The next project on his roster? Full Circle, an HBO Max limited series starring Dennis Quaid, Zazie Beetz, Claire Danes, and Timothy Olyphant. The six-episode series, directed entirely by Soderbergh, tells the story of an investigation into a botched kidnapping in New York City, with Quaid reportedly playing a high-profile chef whose grandson becomes a target. Soderbergh is famously in his Soder-bag when it comes to crime-laced thrillers, so here’s hoping this series, with its punchy longline and eclectic ensemble, is no exception. —Y.D.

    The Full Monty (FX)

    Premiere date TBD

    In an era of reboots, reunions, and long-delayed new seasons, the British indie comedy The Full Monty was not necessarily high on anyone’s list of must-see comebacks. But now that all the original stars have agreed to return—that’s Robert Carlyle, Mark Addy, Tom Wilkinson, and many more—under the guidance of original screenwriter Simon Beaufoy and producer Uberto Pasolini, why not look forward to it? The original 1997 film, the first best-picture nominee from what was then Fox Searchlight, remains a winning gem, and the new series promises to hit on many of the same themes. According to FX, “it will follow the original band of brothers as they navigate the post-industrial city of Sheffield and society’s crumbling health care, education, and employment sectors. The series will explore the brighter, sillier, and more humane way forward where communal effort can still triumph over adversity.” —K.R.

    The Idol (HBO)

    Premiere date TBD

    Billed as coming from “the gutters of Hollywood,” the collaboration between Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye and Euphoria creator Sam Levinson recently released a teaser trailer that includes sex, drugs, rock and roll, and star Lily-Rose Depp in a series of improbably tiny bikini tops. A toxic love story between Depp’s aspiring pop star and The Weeknd as a self-help guru, it looks like an even more Hollywood-ized version of Euphoria, or maybe The Weeknd’s dizzying club scene in Uncut Gems stretched to series length. Prepare to watch your entire Twitter feed yell about it every Sunday night whenever The Idol finally does premiere. —K.R.

    The Last Thing He Told Me (Apple TV+)

    Premiere date TBD

    After starring in her own buzzy TV adaptations of blockbuster novels like Big Little Lies and Little Fires Everywhere, Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine presents The Last Thing He Told Me—a starring vehicle for Jennifer Garner (who replaced Julia Roberts), based on Laura Dave’s 2021 book. Garner stars as Hannah, a woman who finds new means of connection with her 16-year-old stepdaughter (Angourie Rice) as they search for their husband and father Owen (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) following his startling disappearance. Dave is adapting her novel alongside cocreator and husband Josh Singer, winner of an Oscar for cowriting 2015’s Spotlight. Olivia Newman, who helmed Hello Sunshine’s Where the Crawdads Sing film adaptation, has been brought on to direct. —S.W.

    Lessons in Chemistry (Apple TV+)

    Premiere date TBD

    The adaptation of Bonnie Garmus’s best-selling novel centers on a woman (Brie Larson) whose dreams of being a scientist but, stifled by the 1960s societal belief that women belong in the kitchen and not the labs, instead uses her hosting gig on a TV cooking show to help women learn about much more than making dinner. Oscar winner Larson also produces the series, which also stars Lewis Pullman, Aja Naomi King, and Beau Bridges. —R.F.

    Masters of the Air (Apple TV+)

    Premiere date TBD

    In development at HBO for nearly a decade before Apple took it over, this World War II historical drama is produced by none other than Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, among others, and reunites Hanks with his Elvis costar Austin Butler. Cary Joji Fukunaga, also an executive producer, is among the sterling list of directors on the reportedly wildly expensive series—Dee Rees (Mudbound), Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Captain Marvel), and Tim van Patten (The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones, etc. etc.) also step behind the camera. Twenty years after Band of Brothers, are Hanks and Spielberg set to make TV history again? —K.R.

    Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (Netflix)

    Limited series premiere date TBD

    Have you wondered what Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel) was like before she was the talk of the ’Ton? Then you’re in luck because Netflix’s Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story waltzes onto the streaming platform in 2023. The limited prequel series from mega-producer Shonda Rhimes will follow the travails of the young Queen Charlotte (India Amarteifio) as well as younger versions of Bridgerton matriarchs Lady Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell) and Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh). ”It truly is stunning,” Netflix head of scripted series Peter Friedlander told Variety. “It is going to live up to your expectations.” —C.M.

    Secret Invasion (Disney+)

    Premiere Date TBD

    It’s been 15 years since Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury first told Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man about a “bigger universe.” Little did he know what awaited them! And with Secret Invasion, Jackson is finally getting his turn in the spotlight. Adapted from one of Marvel Comics’ most memorable story lines, the series sets Fury up against a faction of Skrulls (the shape-shifting alien race introduced in 2019’s Captain Marvel) that have infiltrated Earth on a global scale. Given its premise and star power (newcomers Emilia Clarke, Kingsley Ben-Adir, and Academy Award winner Olivia Colman join a formidable lineup of MCU veterans including Jackson, Cobie Smulders, Ben Mendelsohn, Don Cheadle, and Martin Freeman), Secret Invasion is shaping up to be a twisted joyride that’s more spy thriller than CGI-fest. It couldn’t arrive at a better time. —T.B.

    Three-Body Problem (Netflix) 

    Premiere date TBD

    Game of Thrones’ D.B.s return—David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are overseeing this sci-fi series about humanity’s first encounter with intelligent alien life. Cocreated with True Blood’s Alexander Woo, the show is based on a novel by Liu Cixin and will reportedly cover a vast span of time with an ensemble cast. Among the actors are Jess Hong of Inked, Liam Cunningham (a Thrones veteran), John Bradley (another), and Doctor Strange’s Benedict Wong and Jovan Adepo (Fences). The title refers to a type of physics equation that predicts the movements of three different objects in relation to each other. The notoriously difficult question focused on whether a repeating pattern could be discerned. With two objects—that’s no problem. But add the third, and the possibilities become much harder to predict. —A.B.

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    Vanity Fair

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  • ‘Yellowjackets’ Renewed For Season 3 Ahead Of Season 2’s 2023 Premiere

    ‘Yellowjackets’ Renewed For Season 3 Ahead Of Season 2’s 2023 Premiere

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    By Stacy Lambe‍, ETOnline.com.
    Published:

    “Yellowjackets” just scored an early season 3 renewal. Announced on Thursday, the news comes months ahead of the Showtime hit series’ anticipated return with season 2 on March 26, 2023.

    “With ‘Yellowjacket”s runaway success in season 1 and the pent-up anticipation for season 2, we wanted to maximize the momentum by fast tracking season 3 now,” said Chris McCarthy, President/CEO, Showtime and Paramount Media Networks.

    He added, “The show’s ambition is only exceeded by its execution, and I thank the incredible creative team behind it, including Ashley [Lyle], Bart [Nickerson], Jonathan [Lisco], eOne and the Showtime team, for turning this into such a success.”

    Season 2, meanwhile, is set to pick up as winter settles in the remote northern wilderness where a group of teenage soccer players have survived a harrowing plane crash and are struggling to stay alive as the elements and deep divides within the group start to challenge them.

    The series also follows a smaller group of adults who were eventually rescued and are the only ones who know exactly what happened out in the woods and how they eventually got out.

    “Yellowjackets” stars Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis, Christina Ricci and Tawny Cypress among the adult cast, with Lauren Ambrose and Simone Kessell joining as series regulars and Elijah Wood recurring in season 2. The younger stars include Sophie Nélisse, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sophie Thatcher, Samantha Hanratty, Courtney Eaton and Liv Hewson.

    “Yellowjackets” season 2 premieres Sunday, March 26 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Showtime, with new episodes available to stream on the Friday before on the Showtime app.

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    Becca Longmire

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