One 'Yellowjackets' scene Christina Ricci wished she had 'done more' for in Season 3

Yahoo

08-03-2025

Yellowjackets Season 3 (on Crave in Canada, Paramount+ with Showtime in the U.S.) continues shock and surprise. For Misty, played by Christina Ricci, she has to deal with a lot of death in her life as an adult, adding on to what she went through in the wilderness.
In Episode 5 Misty's core motivation is to get answers to who killed her friend Lottie (Simone Kessell) at the end of the previous episode. And tapping into her Citizen Detective role, Misty always does things her own way.
"I'm just always interested in playing really authentic feeling individuals," Ricci said about playing Misty. "I think that she's a person born out of so much pain and trauma and rejection, and yet is sort of delightful, and entertains herself all day long, and is ... incredibly capable and efficient, and also in ways so pragmatic."
"Yes, the moral compass was adjusted when they overstepped this totally insane line, but she still adheres to a morality. And it's not like her bad acts are out of pleasure or sadism, or any of that stuff. I think it's important to play characters like this, because it's all about understanding. ... I just feel like there's so many different types of people and ... to have somebody who seems extreme, but then root all that behaviour down to real human experience, I feel like that's good for people's empathy."
But at the time of Lottie's death Misty had already been grieving the loss of Natalie (Juliette Lewis), including one moment earlier in the season where Misty puts on Natalie's leather jacket and goes into a bar acting like the friend she lost. While it was a particularly fun scene for the season, Ricci wished she had taken it even further.
"I feel like I could have done more of that, her actually trying to be [Natalie]," Ricci said. "And sometimes it's so hard because the scenes are written for comedy, but then there's this really interesting thing that's going on underneath, and you can't focus as much on the really interesting thing underneath, because you have to play the comedy."
"And it's always a really fine balance, but I would have liked to explore it more, like really trying to be like Natalie in those moments."
A particular highlight in Season 3 of Yellowjackets, for both Ricci and the show's fans, is that adult Misty and adult Shauna, played by Melanie Lynskey, spend a lot more time together. That includes this week's episode where Shauna teams up with Walter (Elijah Wood) to investigate Lottie's death, and they run into Misty conducting her own investigation at the apartment where Lottie's father lives.
"I love working with Mel. It's great and we make a really great team," Ricci said. "Actually, we balance each other out very, very well."
"She's the nicest person in the world, and I'm the most, sort of like, absolutely no emotion. We're at work. We need to get our day done. ... It's a really fun balance for us. And then we both have small children, and we're the same age, we've known each other forever, and so it's fun just to hang out all day."
With Yellowjackets, Ricci has also found it interesting going back to Misty, as she's evolving personally between seasons.
"It is really hard. I've never been a part of a long term television show before," Ricci said. "And it's interesting, naturally, as you go through your life, you grow and change, and ... if you're playing the same character over that span of time, in which you're changing personally, your personal changes are going to affect the character as you play them."
"So that's been interesting, because it is a challenge to try to get yourself back to the person you were a year ago, two years ago even. And so at first I felt a lot of stress and tension, and a lot of stress and pressure about that, and then I realized that nobody else seemed to be worried about it, so I was just going to let it go."
While Ricci was cautious to not reveal too much about what's coming up on Yellowjackets, including after being asked about the future of Misty and Walter's relationship, she highlighted how "isolated" the character is this season.
"Misty is isolated from everybody this season, even when she's with them, [she is feeling really] circumspect about everybody in her life," Ricci said. "And at a certain point, you kind of figure out what conclusion she's come to, but it's not obvious for a very long time."