Yellowjackets’ Sophie Thatcher on Rescue Call, Losing Juliette Lewis

[This story contains major spoilers from the season three finale of Yellowjackets, “Full Circle.”]

Yellowjackets needed to deliver a win, and that’s exactly what the Showtime survival saga did when it capped its third season with Sophie Thatcher screaming from the top of a mountain to the head-banging tune of Aerosmith’s “Livin’ on the Edge.”

After a deadly season that was certainly the darkest one yet from showrunners Ashley Lyle, Bart Nickerson and Jonathan Lisco, and a revelatory finale that answered not only who killed Lottie (it was Shauna’s daughter Callie, played by Sarah Desjardins) but also unmasked the long-debated identity of Pit Girl as Mari (Alexa Barajas), Yellowjackets then followed teenage Natalie, played by Thatcher, to a mountaintop after she and Misty (explaining the smile Samantha Hanratty flashed in the pilot) secretly fixed the SAT phone from the scientists and Nat made a connection with the outside world.

The fist-pumping moment puts the teenagers who have been stranded in the wilderness for over a year on the precipice of being rescued, and gives the coming-of-age horror-drama the opportunity to explore the most anticipated timeline of all (pending a season four renewal): when these savage and feral teenagers finally get rescued and reassimilate back into society after everything they’ve done.

For Thatcher, who is now the sole guardian of Natalie after the departure of former star Juliette Lewis, whose Adult Natalie died in the season two finale, the thrill of the season three finale also carries with it a sadness, since Thatcher knows where her character is headed.

“Nat is a person who is constantly trying to find purpose, and I think bringing peace in their community was her purpose [in the beginning of season three],” Thatcher tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Once they leave the wilderness, she lacks that purpose.”

Below, Thatcher reveals how she’s infused Lewis into her performance in season three as she unravels the complexity of her character as she’s gone from Antler Queen to losing it all to now having her finale moment (“She is kind of the hero of the story”), looks back on the biggest tragedy of losing Lewis and shares how it felt to film this ending: “It felt therapeutic to just let all of Natalie out.”

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Have you seen Juliette Lewis since you two haven’t acted together on this show?

I was actually able to see her perform for the first time at one of the benefit concerts [for the L.A. fires], and that was surreal. She’s like Mick Jagger on stage. She’s an animal. It’s insane, and it makes so much sense seeing her onscreen and then seeing her on stage. It’s like she was, of course, born to do this.

When we spoke after season two, you had the bittersweet ending of Nat being crowned Antler Queen in the past but dying in the present. You were wrapping your head around what Yellowjackets would be like without Juliette. Now after this season, two of your castmates (Liv Hewson and Courtney Eaton) join you in not having their adult characters after Lottie (Simone Kessell) and Van’s (Lauren Ambrose) deaths, so hopefully you feel less alone than when you began the season with that photoshoot where you were the only one solo.

That was so devastating! I looked so sad! I did feel weirdly vulnerable, and it clearly reads in those photos where it’s kind of jarring, but it’s the reality. You saw it this season. I was self-conscious going into it thinking that my presence… wouldn’t be enough? Or wouldn’t hold [Juliette’s] magnetic presence onscreen. There was a sense of emptiness to an extent, but also freedom because I know that Natalie is innate within me. I feel like I’ve grown up with this character. I feel like she was me when I was younger. I can’t speak on Juliette’s behalf, but I think she felt that to some extent, too, to a heightened extent.

I was really nervous about that. Now watching the season, it’s sad not to have the back and forth because there’s so much richness and sadness to see how dark she is in the present day. Whereas my Natalie still has hope and a sense of optimism. Seeing that back and forth was in itself a tragedy to me. So I felt sad about that.

It’s also a really sad season for Nat. It’s a hard season where she seems a bit closer to Adult Nat, because she’s so broken down in the wilderness.

So broken down. She is fully isolated from the group. She always has been, but she’s isolated to the greatest extent this season because she is one of the only ones, or one of a few, who is holding onto a sense of humanity. I think she stores her guilt in a very specific way where she can’t let go of it. And that’s why she will do anything to escape her own mind in the modern day, because she’s holding onto so much guilt.

With the Coach Ben [death] scene, you see that now [after she mercy killed him]. It makes more sense; she’s hardening this season. I think that’s what was missing within first season Natalie. There was still a little bit of lightness and she wasn’t quite as hardened. But now you’re starting to see that tension and more of that grit that Juliette has.

I spoke with Ben Semanoff, your director for episode nine, and he said there was a moment of nine where he couldn’t see you, but he could hear you. He went over to you and asked if you were doing a Juliette Lewis impression, and you said you were. Did you find her more in your performance this season as you went darker?

With the first season it was innate. We had pretty similar voices to begin with. She has this beautiful richness to her voice. I don’t know how to describe it. It feels like there’s wisdom within her voice, you can feel in her voice that she’s lived a lot. It’s more like a feeling, but I was trying to capture that and technically just lower my voice. That’s all it takes when I’m on set. It’s thinking about that rather than getting too deep with it. But I also have a tendency when I’m in emotional or stressful situations, and I always have since I was a kid, I lower my voice. You can tell I’m really stressed out when I lower my voice. I think that started bleeding through the character as the stakes are raising each episode. So I think that kept happening and every once in a while, there’s a line where it just kind of falls into the Juliette voice.

Do you think she picked up on that?

I’m sure it’s weird to her. I always think about that, because I’m mimicking her. I was so specific about it, but it’s also not that technical. It’s very intuitive. It’s channeling a very specific feeling.

There was a scene, I think it was in the tunnel, when you and Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) were standing over Coach with your shotguns, and you looked like Juliette from Natural Born Killers.

That’s amazing! I give pretty different takes to show different sides. But in the editing, they usually choose the one that is most Juliette. It’s interesting to see that, knowing the other options that I had, that they always go down that route.

I know you each had introductory conversations with the showrunners at the beginning of the season. Can you tell me what was laid out for you for Nat?

I didn’t know what to expect with Natalie being leader. Her being a leader is innate because she believes in fairness and equality, and it was interesting to turn the show on its head and see them thriving for one second. To see Natalie possibly at her healthiest was really interesting, and the last thing I expected because season two was so incredibly dark. The first couple episodes, things are going well and Natalie doesn’t have a whole lot to do but talk about the chores. She’s a person who is constantly trying to find purpose, and I think bringing peace in their community was her purpose. Once they leave the wilderness, she lacks that purpose.

When she doesn’t have that anymore, that’s when she becomes so lost. I just thought it would be darker, so I was really shocked by that first episode. I loved how the tonal shift is really jarring. Like, Natalie’s smiling in this? What hell? (Laughs) But they really just talked about her being a leader, and they don’t really tell us anything else, which is exciting and also nerve-wracking because you get to be there with the characters living it in the moment.

So you didn’t know that you would be the final shot of the season, and bring them to the precipice of being rescued.

Fuck no. There are always rumors, but no, I didn’t know. It was kind of the same reaction that I had from last season, where I was not expecting her to be Antler Queen. Now we’ve learned that everyone kind of takes turns being the Antler Queen, but I had no idea it would be her. That was a huge moment for me and an exciting moment as an actor, because it feels like a niche cultural moment that I got to be a part of. Even if it was short, it was exciting.

Well, now you get to be the hero.

I do stand by that. She is kind of the hero of the story. I was going through a point where, after we had finished shooting the season, I would get really emotional talking about her. Because she’s fucked up, she’s done some wrong. But she is good at her core, and a good human being. And for people to feel that amid so much evil and chaos… just made me so emotional. I would do interviews and start crying talking about her! It was really intense.

You teared up when I spoke to you at the beginning of this season!

You’re right!

Your co-creator Bart Nickerson directed the finale and he told me you flew up to the top of a mountain and experienced this heat inversion because you were so high. What was it like filming that final scene?

That was one of my favorite parts of shooting. It was just a couple of us. It felt intimate and like an indie movie with a very small crew. Those moments when I was screaming felt like a release, and for that to be the last scene, it felt therapeutic to just let all of Natalie out. My Natalie hasn’t had that release. The scene in episode nine where she gets to break down [as winter is coming] and she feels like a child that lacks control, that felt good because she’s been bottled up for so long.

I just remember feeling in that scene where I’m crying and desperate for help, the very last shot of nine, that it felt like I could let out my own emotions as Sophie through Natalie. You don’t always get that. And Bart knows Natalie so well. Natalie is also in him; he’s told me he relates to her the most. So to feel that and share that intimacy was a really special day and also gorgeous. I feel like I’ll never have a day like that again! So I’m very thankful they trusted me with that moment.

Are you dying to know where the show will pick up from here?

I am always the last to know, and I don’t really poke questions because I know that I’m usually not going to get answers. There’s also sometimes beauty within the unknown. It’s kind of nice to be in the moment with the characters and live off of that adrenaline from how shocking the script is.

I’m nervous for Nat when she goes back and sees Shauna.

From an acting standpoint, it’s truly only getting darker and it’s already so dark that it’s like, where do we go from here? I’m curious because talking about how she had purpose in the wilderness, to then explore that feeling of being so lost and confused will definitely be intense as an actor. Because I always take it home with me to some extent.

Ben had a really interesting take on Nat. You could understand if she wouldn’t want to go home, given her family life, and here she is fighting to be rescued. Ben said she’s a survivor who wants to live, and now she’s saying: This is not how I’m going to go. She already escaped abuse at home, she’s not going to be stuck in the wilderness because Shauna is abusing her to stay.

Absolutely. She’s already been through hell, so I think surviving is just innate within her. It’s who she is. She’s been doing it her whole life, which is also why in the first season she was actually kind of thriving in the wilderness. I think there’s this notion of wanting to start over whereas with Shauna, this is the most power she’s ever had and she’s had control, where I think Natalie never had control in her life. So if anything, Natalie is used to it. But everything Ben said was exactly what I was feeling and there’s something also more tragic and sad because of what she’s endured that to see her strength, it really shows off her grit and her endurance. I think she’s such an admirable character.

Which makes it so heartbreaking to see how lost she is as an adult. The first time we meet her as an adult in the pilot, Juliette is saying she’s lost her way, and she knows how to find it again. I went back and rewatched the pilot after this Pit Girl reveal.

You know, I haven’t rewatched the first season. I’m curious what it would do to me, because I usually try not to fixate on anything. It’s such a good pilot.

Nat and Misty have a strong connection. It’s rocky, but it’s a connection. We’ve been wondering why it’s so one-sided in present day, which has now been explained by Nat discovering that Misty hid their plane transponder. But I’m also wondering how Nat could go near Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) in present day after what she put you through as a teenager in the wilderness this season.

I know. I’m really curious, because it wasn’t a dynamic that stood out to me, Natalie and Shauna. I am curious going into [a season four] because I wasn’t expecting their rivalry to go to this extent. I also wasn’t expecting Shauna to turn like this and go this evil. I’m curious to go back to that and, if we get picked up again, I think I would probably have to go back and watch [the first season] as homework.

The Pit Girl reveal of Mari (Alexa Barajas) was huge. Your showrunners said our experience of watching it with the pilot footage mixed with the new footage was to show how the survivors remember it compared to how it actually happened. What was your experience filming that?

That’s so interesting because I didn’t know that! One of the many great things about this show is that it’s so fun when you get to play with these absurdist, surrealist moments where it’s limitless and boundless, like anything can happen. Shooting it is all equally intense, but there was something so incredibly satisfying about seeing Sammy [Hanratty] with the glasses and even the crack in her lip, and then seeing that smile from the pilot. I watched that on the screen right next to her while she was shooting, and it was this really intense magical moment. I wasn’t there for a lot of the Pit Girl stuff. We all love Alexa so much. I love how they were able to build her character; there’s so much more empathy for her now. I was saying that Natalie is one of the only good ones, but Mari has that, too. So it was pretty devastating.

Have you watched the finale yet?

Yes.

I wanted to get your take on the plane scenes. On the Vans compared to the Nats, and how your final scene with Juliette Lewis and your conversation about fate and the afterlife compares to what Lauren Ambrose and Liv Hewson discussed in Van’s final scene. What did you take away?

I think they’re very different characters. With Natalie, it was so devastating to see her break and cry like a child in comparison to me, who’s so stoic and almost maybe at peace. I think for so much of her life, she’s wanted it to be over. She had so much conflict internally that I think there’s peace, within both scenes. I think there’s something beautiful and really heartbreaking about that. But specifically for Natalie, because she wanted to end her life and tried to end her life so many times, that to see that and just let it sit was all the more haunting. I loved the way they were with Lauren watching [the screen] and how meta it got. I mean, it was truly a nightmare and very Lynchian. I love when people make the comparisons to David Lynch, and it’s with these moments, where it’s heartbreaking but it also asks even more questions than giving answers.

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Yellowjackets season three is now streaming on Paramount+ With Showtime. Check out THR‘s season three coverage and finale interviews, including with the showrunners, Alexa Barajas, Sarah Desjardins, Melanie Lynskey, Tawny Cypress and Christina Ricci, and Courtney Eaton.