Full panel for "Yellowjackets" at FYC TV Fest
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00:00Yellow Jackets, we are so back this season.
00:04Yes, let me introduce our incredible panel.
00:07With us, we have actor Melanie Linsky, who plays Shauna.
00:11Executive producer and showrunner, Ashley Lyle.
00:15Executive producer and showrunner, Jonathan Niska.
00:19And executive producer and showrunner, Bart Nickerson.
00:24What a season.
00:27Melanie, I just want to start with you.
00:28How much did you know coming into season three of what was going to happen
00:33or where Shauna was going to go?
00:36I had a pretty good overview, I would say.
00:40We always have a talk at the beginning of the season, which is really fun,
00:45and just discuss the character's arc.
00:48I don't hear too much about what's happening with other characters.
00:51It's more just like Shauna's journey.
00:54So I'm still surprised.
00:55As the season goes on, there's just one heartbreak after another for me.
01:00I'm like, oh no, that person's going, that person's going.
01:04But yeah, I had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen.
01:10Not super specific, like you're going to take a chunk out of Hilary Swank's arm.
01:15But things were going to get pretty crazy and dark and she's getting very paranoid and like, yeah, pretty much the arc.
01:23Speaking of taking a bite out of Hilary's arm, specifically, take me to the writers' room.
01:30What was that conversation of like, we're going to have Shauna bite her arm?
01:38You know, we had that very early in the writers' room, but our shorthand for it was, Shauna eats her hand.
01:45And we would just say that so casually at a certain point.
01:50We're like, and then Shauna eats her hand and blah, blah, blah.
01:52And then at a certain point, we're like, what are we actually going to do there?
01:57Because she can't eat an entire hand.
01:59That seems untenable.
02:01But we knew that we wanted to have a really brutal, vicious moment for Shauna that is sort of the unlocking of everything that she's been holding back for three seasons.
02:17Yeah, it's funny how you put a placeholder sometimes on the whiteboard, so to speak.
02:21In our case, sort of an infinite digital whiteboard.
02:24And you keep referring to it as if it's just a thing you do when you go to work.
02:27It's like, yeah, then she eats her hand.
02:28But at some point, you have to drill down and figure out what does that really mean.
02:32And just to add to what Ashley was saying, we wanted her to do something brutal, but we also wanted to make psychological sense.
02:39So it's about domination.
02:41And it's also about what they went through in the woods and the flesh and all of that cross-pollinating in that one moment
02:48so that she could show Melissa who was boss in that moment and other psychological factors.
02:54So it wasn't just that we wanted her to eat a hand.
02:56It was that we wanted it to resonate with the story that we've been telling.
03:03Melanie, what was your reaction when you get this script and you see that she's going to bite a chunk of someone's...
03:11Well, Melissa's arm.
03:12It's funny because I guess I read the script for the first time as me because I'm so excited to see what's going to happen because I love the show.
03:25So I read it as an audience member and I'm like, oh my God, that's so cool.
03:28Oh my God, that's crazy.
03:29And then I try to kind of, it sounds a bit silly, but like drop into the energy of Shauna, which is different from myself.
03:38And there was, with all the like crazy chaotic stuff, the more kind of violent she gets, the more calm I feel in that energy.
03:50So it was an interesting thing, like in playing her, because she's felt like kind of a scattered person who's sort of a bit adrift and not really finding her footing.
04:01And then in the second half of the season, there's something just really settled where she was just like, yep, here I am.
04:07It was like emerging from a cocoon.
04:09And so it was really fun.
04:12It felt like a different, like a truer form of the character emerging, which was fun.
04:19I want to talk a little bit about the Teen Yellow Jackets because that storyline is so, you know, those actors are so incredible.
04:25And that storyline just, you know, we start to unpack more this season.
04:32What is that, you know, what was that like unpacking where the girls go this year?
04:37I mean, it was definitely, you know, kind of a fun challenge, you know, because like we sort of, you know, knew that we were going to get back up to the pilot kind of and wanting it to feel like both an ending and a new beginning and to have it be the maximum version of some of the themes that we were kind of establishing.
05:04Sorry, it's so distracting my name with my thing underneath.
05:07For the credit, it's just like, hey, that's super fun.
05:14So it was apparently not as fun as this moment.
05:19But, yeah, but it was an incredible challenge and, you know, just, you know, like kind of really fun and kind of fulfilling to sort of, you know, reach that moment.
05:32It kind of the pilot kind of opens up with like a maximum kind of yellow jackets.
05:38I think one of my favorite parts about working on this show is that, you know, obviously we have two timelines.
05:46It's almost two shows and two casts.
05:49And in the adult timeline, it's one of those shows where I'm like, I can't believe all of these amazing actors are on one show.
05:55And in the teen timeline, I feel like it's a situation where we're going to look back and say, I can't believe all of those actors were on one show because every single one of them is an incredibly talented actor.
06:10So we knew that we had a lot to work with this season in terms of, you know, when you start a show, you're like, well, you know, you cast it and you hope for the best.
06:20And we felt really good about it.
06:22But by season three, we know exactly how good they are.
06:25So we really wanted to dig deeper and have each of them, you know, in their own specific way, be not only sort of coping with their circumstances, but blossoming under those circumstances.
06:41And that, to some extent, can be for better or for worse in the case of Shauna, potentially.
06:46But, you know, I think that Natalie and Sophie Thatcher did an incredible job of really stepping into this sort of hero role, whereas everybody else did such a lovely job of the murkiness that we give them, where it's neither hero nor villain.
07:02Everybody is behaving in ways that are maybe a little questionable from a moral standpoint.
07:09But that was what we really wanted to do this season, what we had been building towards.
07:13So it was, as Bart said, a really fun challenge to see how far we could take it.
07:21Boy, did you take it really far this season.
07:23Can't wait for season four.
07:25Talking about, you know, the teen timeline, Sophie and Elise is incredible as teen Shauna.
07:32How does her performance and what is happening in her storyline help you understand where modern day Shauna is, especially with her trauma?
07:40I mean, I have been given such a gift as an actor because half of my story is being told by somebody who I think is one of the greatest actors working.
07:54Like, there is nothing she cannot do.
07:57Season after season, she's been given very difficult material.
08:00And this season was really tough.
08:02And she just, she's incredible.
08:05She's so incredible.
08:06So I just watch her and I'm just in awe.
08:09Like, I just can't believe her.
08:10All of them.
08:11Like, every single one of those young actors.
08:14But Sophie, I'm just like, oh, God, the fact that I get to carry the story with you, it informs so much.
08:20Like, I luckily, thanks to the transparency of these writers, know a lot about teen Shauna's journey in the wilderness.
08:28I'm really, really grateful for that.
08:30And they're always willing to answer questions for me if I'm like, wait, there's one specific thing I kind of need to know because it informs this.
08:38But getting to see Sophie play it out is, it's incredible.
08:44Somebody asked me, like, what happens in season three of Yellow Jackets and, like, who dies.
08:50And I'm like, well, it'd be easy for me to tell you who doesn't die.
08:53We're going to go full spoiler here.
08:56What is that like when you write these deaths in the writer's room?
09:00And, Ashley, I think you and I were talking about this.
09:03And that episode airs and you see the fan reactions and how emotionally attached and passionate they are to the show.
09:12I mean, it's terrible for us.
09:17It's really, really difficult to kill characters.
09:21I mean, we've been thinking about it.
09:26They're so squirmy.
09:28They won't hold still.
09:33I mean, these are characters who've been living in our brains for years.
09:39And then they are actors who are our friends and colleagues.
09:44So, you know, we will play the game in the writer's room a lot where we go, do we have to do it?
09:50And often, the more we don't want to, the more that we know it's the right decision.
09:55And I think that that is what's happening with the audience.
09:59Because if we've done our jobs right, it should hurt.
10:02If it doesn't hurt, then we have failed.
10:06And, you know, I think that ideally we gave, you know, a really emotional send-off to, you know,
10:15I think Stephen Kruger's performance this season was absolutely stunning.
10:20We've known Stephen for a very long time.
10:22And I said to him after a couple of days on set, I was like, you know, I knew you were good,
10:27but I didn't know you were that good, to be perfectly honest.
10:31And, you know, Simone and Lauren are phenomenal actors.
10:35But this is a show where people are going to die.
10:40And I do think we also got a little, as you all now know, we got a little bit of a lesson of that.
10:48On our very first job, we were on the originals, which is the Vampire Diaries spinoff.
10:52And characters die in that world all the time.
10:55And so you just have to push forward despite the pain, I guess.
11:02Yeah, and I do want to say there's a perverse aspect to it, too.
11:04I was joking with Stephen on set that he actually sowed the seeds of his own demise by being so incredibly good.
11:11Because we cathect to him as an audience.
11:14Certainly as writers, his character starts talking to us more even than we write him.
11:18And that is a moment when, as writers, we know you've created something poignant,
11:24which is larger than the sum of its parts,
11:26when the characters in your head start telling you what must happen.
11:30And because he's so good and our entire cast is so great,
11:33we get to go into the writer's room with an unfettered imagination.
11:39And I've worked on lots of shows and with lots of wonderful actors,
11:42but this cast to a person never has us turn to one another in the writer's room and say,
11:47oh, well, we can't do that because this person might not be able to handle it.
11:50Not once.
11:52And we never will.
11:53And so, unfortunately, because the show is about trauma, that must have consequences.
11:58And if it didn't, I think the audience would rebel.
12:01Because it would start feeling like melodrama and artificial.
12:04But because we wanted to keep it as real and as poignant as possible,
12:09unfortunately, the characters that you come to love may have to slough off this mortal coil.
12:14Yeah, and I mean, I feel like it's also worth, you know,
12:20it's great if like a death is like surprising,
12:22but I feel like the way that this show is constructed in terms of the premise,
12:26like having, you know, you know, to show about a kind of survival
12:31and wanting to give as much of the like subjective texture of a kind of regret and pain
12:38and the sort of like, like kind of the arduous grind of the survival process.
12:46Like that's also what the deaths are trying to do.
12:48So they're kind of meant to be like deeply painful in terms of kind of watching them.
12:55You know, it's not supposed to be just a surprise,
12:58but of course, you know, kind of surprising the audience is always fun.
13:02But like, yeah, like I think we really have no choice in telling this story,
13:07but to kind of make these very difficult decisions.
13:11I love Shauna's final moments when she's journaling.
13:16When she says, I was a warrior, a fucking queen,
13:19and I'm not going to let that slip away anymore.
13:22It was such an incredible, again, it's like speaks to her trauma and where she's at.
13:26But what did that line mean to you and to Shauna and where she's at?
13:32Sorry, I'm still trying to get over all the death talk.
13:39I hate it.
13:43What did it mean?
13:44It's a similar thing to what I was talking about before.
13:50Like, I think it's her finding herself again.
13:54I think it's her connecting to the part of herself that feels the most real and the most alive.
14:03And it was exciting for me to be in her little kitchen,
14:07just, you know, having this big realisation of like,
14:10oh, I can be that person again.
14:12I don't know what that means.
14:14If we get another season, I don't know how crazy she's going to be,
14:19but it was exciting.
14:21Season four, we're going to wait for it, right?
14:25And, you know, please go easier, Melanie, and the deafs.
14:29Please, I'm too sensitive.
14:32I love everyone so much.
14:35I want to say thank you to everybody on Yellow Jackets
14:39and for this conversation and for sharing insight.
14:42And, yes, we'll be staying tuned for season four.
14:45And congratulations on season three.
14:46Thank you again.
14:47Stay tuned for the next conversation.
14:48Thank you so much.
14:49Thank you so much.