05-04-2025
I Genuinely Cannot Watch "Yellowjackets" The Same Way After Learning These 23 Fascinating Facts
🚨 Warning: There are MASSIVE spoilers ahead! 🚨
1. In the original pitch for the show, the series was supposed to take place 20 years earlier, with the plane crash happening in the 1970s and the "present-day" being the 1990s. However, the timeline got pushed ahead in order to make the setting feel more familiar to viewers.
2. The idea for the series was also heavily influenced by Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, a flight carrying a rugby team that crashed in the Andes mountains in 1972. Only 16 of the 45 passengers survived.
3. William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies also served as inspiration for this series. While many were skeptical that young girls would turn to the same savagery as the boys in the book, creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson felt this premise was a "metaphor for teenage hierarchy."
Ashley explained, "The real question is how did normal girls get from point A to point B? How do they go from having the most typical suburban teenage experience to doing the most extreme thing a human being can do? The show is a metaphor for teenage hierarchy. These girls were already ravaging one another in 1996."
4. The creators pitched the series to "16 or 17" different networks, including HBO, which was very excited by the idea. However, at the time, HBO was developing Euphoria and didn't want to focus on multiple shows with teenage protagonists.
"There's a difference between shows that feature teenagers that are aimed at teenage viewers and shows that feature teenagers that are aimed at a more adult audience," Ashley explained. "We always point to The Virgin Suicides, which is very much about teenage girls but does not feel like YA. That being said, I think the networks are very aware of their brands and don't tend to look at things that way. Shows about teenagers or that feature teenagers with ambitions to be something other than a classic YA show tend to frighten people a little bit. They aren't something with a long track record. That is something we came up against when we were pitching it. The flip side of that was how there were a couple places that very much saw it as a YA show and that wasn't our intention. So we ultimately felt like those networks were not the best fit."
5. The name Yellowjackets actually came from Ashley and Bart Googling sports team names. They felt that yellowjackets fit the theme of the show best.
Ashley told Deadline, "The yellowjackets as a species are very dependent on a queen, and the dynamics of the hive are very specific. It sounds so corny, but it's a small creature with a large sting. We felt that was just right.
6. Several of the actors wear colored contacts on the show. Like, Sophie Nélisse, who plays teen Shauna, naturally has blue eyes and dirty blonde hair. To better match Melanie Lynskey's features she dyes her hair dark and wears brown contacts.
Tawny Cyprus, who plays adult Tai, wears brown contacts to match Jasmin Savoy Bown's eye color. Samantha Hanratty, who plays teen Misty, wears brown contacts too, to match Christina Ricci's eye color.
7. In the opening scene of the pilot episode, we see the Yellowjackets covered in masks and fur, as well as the infamous Antler Queen. Only Misty shows her face, but the rest of the stand-ins in that scene are actually stunt coordinators. So the actors actually have no idea which characters (besides Misty) are actually meant to be in that scene.
Showtime
Samantha said, "We all have our theories on who that is too, and we have a group chat in our cast where we try to come up with theories ourselves of what's going on and who we think is who."
8. Sophie Nélisse took Jackie's ear home with her after her scenes wrapped. She recalled sticking it back in her pocket, because no one on set asked for it back. Then, five months later she found the ear again and decided to take it home with her.
9. Jackie's dummy body was made out of jackfruit and rice paper soaked in "barbecue sauce-y stuff" — the cast even nicknamed the prop Jackie-fruit.
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Jonathan Lisco, who wrote Season 2, Episode 2 — aka the episode where the Yellowjackets eat Jackie — said, 'Our young cast, who knew they were about to do something intense, was, in some ways, mimicking art because they were using humor to process it. There was a lot of joking around. They called it Jackie-fruit. The whole thing was bizarre. There was this weird duality of reverence for what we were about to portray but also the sort of human need to make it funny in order to engage it.'
Several of the "teen" cast members gagged and threw up in between takes because of the taste, smell, texture, and, well, the idea of eating a human body.
10. Javi's heart was made of a "gummy bear" -like substance, which ended up being tastier than Jackie's body.
11. Sophie Thatcher, who plays Natalie, showed up to the first soccer practice wearing leopard print pants and high heels.
Sophie Nélisse and Courtney Eaton said it was a great first impression.
12. Van was actually meant to die shortly after the pilot episode, meaning the adult Van (played by Lauren Ambrose) arc was never meant to happen. The producers loved Liv Hewson's performance so much that they decided to expand the character's story.
Kailey Schwerman / Kailey Schwerman/SHOWTIME
Series creator Ashley Lyle told Vulture, "Liv, who plays young Van, was not initially meant to be long for this world. Liv is such an incredible actor, and they brought so much to so little in the pilot. We wrote the pilot, we shot the pilot, and then COVID happened, so we had quite a bit of time before we actually had a writers' room and got green-lit. In that interim, we were able to see what Liv could do. We said, 'We can't kill Van! We can't do it!' And then here we are, Season 3!"
13. In another version of the pilot, Amy Okuda played Cat Wheeler, who was another teacher meant to chaperone the Yellowjackets' trip. Her character ended up being cut from the series.
14. The "teen" cast is actually well into their 20s and 30s. As of 2025, Sophie Thatcher is 24. Sophie Nélisse is 25. Ella Purnell is 28. Samantha Hanratty, Liv Hewson, and Courtney Eaton are 29. Jasmin Savoy Brown is 31. And Kevin Alves is 33.
L-R: Anisa Harris as Teen Robin, Samantha Hanratty as Teen Misty, Kevin Alves as Teen Travis, Jasmin Savoy Brown as Teen Taissa, Silvana Estifanos as Teen Britt, Nia Sondaya as Teen Akilah, Liv Hewson as Teen Van, Vanessa Prasad as Teen Gen, Jenna Burgess as Teen Melissa, Courtney Eaton as Teen Lottie and Sophie Nélisse as Teen Shauna in Yellowjackets, episode 4, season 3, streaming on Paramount+ with SHOWTIME, 2025. Photo Credit: Kailey Schwerman/Paramount+ with SHOWTIME.
15. Sarah Desjardins, who plays Shauna's 16-year-old daughter, is 30 in real life. She originally auditioned to play teen Shauna.
16. Juliette Lewis was one of the first actors considered for starring in the series. The creators had pictured her way back when they originally pitched the show.
"As part of our visual aids we had the original high school yearbook photos from some actors, and Juliette was actually in our pitch, which is funny," Ashley said.
17. Ashley Sutton, who plays Hannah Finch, originally auditioned for the series way back in Season 1. Years later, she got a call asking if she'd be willing to audition for Hannah, the frog scientist.
18. Samantha Hanratty and Christina Ricci have both played Misty while pregnant. Christina was pregnant while filming Season 1 and Samantha was while filming Season 3.
19. Samantha initially went in to audition for teen Natalie. "I went in with a black zip-up hoodie, with dark eye makeup [and a] I-don't-care attitude that had this almost forced darkness. I'm not Natalie and that's totally fine," she explained.
@sammihanratty / Instagram: @sammihanratty
She told Collider, "I could be totally wrong, and I don't want to offend anybody, but I'm like, I don't even know if our writers knew what they were looking for with Misty. I don't really know if anybody had a clear vision of what this character was gonna fully look like and bring. I think they had an idea, but I think I came in and was kind of wrecking that idea a little bit. Because I came in and auditioned like five times. It was not like I came in and they were like, 'That's Misty!' I think I just brought this chaotic, crazy energy that they were like, 'Okay, what are we gonna do with this girl?''
20. Jane Widdop also auditioned for teen Shauna before being cast as Laura Lee.
21. The school scenes in the pilot were shot at John Marshall High School in Los Angeles. Other iconic projects like Grease, Hannah Montana, Pretty in Pink, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and School of Rock were also filmed there.
22. Meanwhile, the rest of the series is shot in Vancouver and British Columbia. Most of the series was shot on a soundstage, but a nearby paintball park was transformed into the crash site where the Yellowjackets regrouped after the plane crash.
@sammihanratty / Instagram: @sammihanratty
23. And finally, the cast has a tradition of throwing "death parties" for their fellow castmates when their characters die on the show.
