This article contains spoilers for “Yellowjackets” Season 2 Episode 6.
Sophie Nélisse carefully watches what she eats. When choosing a restaurant for her 23rd birthday dinner last month, she chose an Italian restaurant in Montreal that specializes in naturally leavened pizzas, commercial yeast-free pies. When she’s in Los Angeles, she shops at Erewhon, a trendy health food store. She loves organic buffalo her cauliflower.
“I eat clean,” she said in a recent video call from her home in Montreal. .”
But Nélisse’s character in Showtime’s hit psychological horror series Yellowjackets has not-so-pretty desires. It’s human flesh. In the Season 2 premiere, in March, her teenage version of her character Shauna snacks on her late best friend Jackie’s ear. She then leads a bacchanal feast of Jackie’s barbecued corpses. (Don’t worry: Shaw used jackfruit and rice paper.)
Ever since the show’s opening scene, “Yellowjackets” has foreshadowed its high school soccer team’s descent into cult rituals and cannibalism. By this week’s episode, Season 6, we had a clearer picture of what it was like when a frightened Shauna ran out of food as she was forced to give birth in the wild.
It’s a harrowing, excruciating performance by Nelisse. She said she knew the stakes were high for her, as she toddled across the soundstage in artificial baby bumps during production, she cried a lot. However, the support from her cast members made the experience easier for her.
“They came up to me every day earlier and said, ‘Hey, is there anything I can help you with today?’ Give me a pat on the shoulder and a hug,” she said. Her co-star Samantha Hanratty, who plays Teenage Misty, gave her a foot massage.
Nelisse speaks excitedly and colloquially, swallowing all the punctuation marks. She claims she doesn’t like being the center of attention. (“I’m still very shy and quirky when introduced to the group,” she said. “Yellowjackets” has been renewed for a third season, and Showtime has submitted Nelisse for Emmy consideration in the Best Actress category.
Growing up in Montreal, Nélisse, like her character, did not have a typical education. She began competitive gymnastics training at the age of 4, some days she practices from 7 in the morning, she rests to attend school and then gets back on the mat, spending about 30 hours a week. I was. To offset the costs of her coaching, training and competing abroad, she tried her hand at acting by auditioning for an agency in Montreal.
“Maybe if I book something,” she explained at the time, she expected to “earn some pocket money.”
She did better than that. She, like Shauna, sometimes feels like she skipped her youth. Her first peck happened on set when she was nine years old. Her first real kiss took place at 4pm, again on set. In 2012, she came to international prominence with her role in the Oscar-nominated Canadian film Monsieur Lazare. Still in her adolescence, when she landed her lead role in the 2013 film The Book Thief, she found herself months out of her elite training regime. She decided to devote herself to her acting.
More roles followed. She said she wouldn’t change anything, but admits her success has come at the cost of some of her innocence.
“I never grew up with kids my age,” she said. “I’ve always been on mostly adult sets and I’ve always been told, ‘You’re so mature.'”
Deprived of their high school ring ceremonies and seasonal dances, the “Yellowjacket” teenage girls are forced to grow up too fast. plays the cowardly sidekick of However, she died of hypothermia after her fight in her season finale drove Jackie into the woods. Shauna has to struggle to find her autonomy as she also struggles with her guilt, hunger, and pregnancy demands.
In some ways, Shauna and Jackie’s conversations get more honest in season two.
Ashley Lyle, who produced “Yellowjackets” with her husband Burt Nickerson, said it felt natural that this close friendship would be the show’s gateway to cannibalism.
I want to be you I want to destroy you I love you; I was able to.”
When Nélisse saw Melanie Lynskey portraying a restless and clearly traumatized adult version of Shauna, at first she tried to imitate Lynskey’s lip-biting habit, but later (Nelisse said she had an emotional breakdown after dyeing her blonde hair brown.)
Lynskey claimed that Nélisse had a harder shell. Nelisse, she said, would tweak her to bring more aggression to the role. Lynskey was moved by Nélisse’s ability to lean into confrontation and create tension with the audience. The juxtaposition of that calmness and seething rage imbues the role with great power.
“She’s a very sweet and gentle person, but she definitely has an iron core more than I do,” Lynskey said.
That steel was essential for the bloody, agonizing Episode 6, when Shauna is forced to give birth in a winter cabin where all the teenage Yellowjacket is stranded. I studied the good and bad stories of women who gave birth. Liz Garbus, who directed the episode, instructed Nélisse to watch the hospital video and her childbirth scene from the shows Garbus helped direct, “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Juno”.
Nélisse spent days crying, sweating and screaming. Between takes, she chugged a honey-and-lemon-infused tea and tried to get real tears behind her brown contacts. He said he remembered, recalling the emotional impact that heartbreaking moment — not having a baby in time — had on everyone involved.
“Sophie wasn’t the only one crying. I was crying, and so were her castmates,” Garbus said. “We all felt this terrible loss and betrayal, fear, sorrow and anger deeply.”
Nelisse said she never thought the baby would survive.
Two months after wrapping up winter season 2, an ice storm hit Nelisse’s house. Just in time to plan for her 23rd birthday. for her powers were gone for her, Over 1 million people across Quebecshe had to improvise hair and makeup at her friend’s mother’s office in order to get to the restaurant on time.
It wasn’t like starving in a snowy cabin, but maybe a little closer to comfort. But the experience made for a memorable pizza.
“That moment is a nightmare,” she said.
