Yellowjackets is a critically-aclaimed American thriller drama television series. The series revolves around a New Jersey high school girls’ soccer team traveling to Seattle for a national tournament in 1996. Their plane crashes deep in the Canadian wilderness, leaving them stranded for nineteen months.
As they fight to survive, some team members resort to cannibalism. The show also explores the lives of the survivors 25 years later in 2021, showing how the events of their ordeal still have a lasting impact on them.
The series features performances by Melanie Lynskey, Tawny Cypress, Ella Purnell, Sophie Nélisse, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sophie Thatcher, Samantha Hanratty, Steven Krueger, Warren Kole, Christina Ricci, Juliette Lewis, Courtney Eaton, Liv Hewson, Kevin Alves, Simone Kessell and Lauren Ambrose.
There’s probably a lot that you don’t know about this series (which first aired on Showtime in November 2021), but today my aim is to change that…
Here are 14 Interesting Facts you might not have known about Yellowjackets
1. The series was created by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson. Lyle and Nickerson also wrote for other TV shows such as Narcos and Dispatches from Elsewhere.
2. The music in Yellowjackets plays a critical role, especially as the series is set in another decade for about half of its duration. The creators deliberately chose music primarily from the 1990s, curating playlists to set the right mood while writing the show.
Certain songs were even scripted into the series from the beginning, despite the potential challenges of securing rights and expenses. Notably, artists like PJ Harvey and Liz Phair were among those included, and surprisingly, many of the artists agreed to be featured, as revealed in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
3. The show drew inspiration from the real-world tragedy of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which crash-landed into the Andes mountain range in South America (in 1972). Initially, 29 survivors managed to survive, but the harrowing ordeal lasted for 72 days, and tragically, almost half of them did not make it through. The same events inspired the 1993 film Alive (which was based on a 1974 book about the events).
4. Yellowjackets presents a contemporary reinterpretation of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. At its essence, Lord of the Flies is a tale that explores the idea that the structure of society is merely a facade.
When faced with a struggle for survival, human beings tend to revert to their most self-centered and instinctual behaviors. Similarly, Yellowjackets delves into these themes, showcasing the unraveling of societal norms and the emergence of primal instincts in the fight for survival.
5. In its early development, Yellowjackets was intended to unfold in both the 1970s and the 1990s. During the initial stages of production, co-creators Lyle and Nickerson aimed for an aesthetic reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s film, Dazed and Confused. However, when Showtime came on board as the producing network, they persuaded the creators to alter the setting to the 1990s and present day.
6. According to Bart Nickerson, part of the initial pitch for Yellowjackets included the final scene for the entire series. If the creators have their way, Yellowjackets will come to an end after five seasons. It was already renewed for a third season (in case you did not know).
7. Christina Ricci was pregnant for the filming of the entire first season. By the time filming wrapped on Season 1, she was a full 7-months pregnant. This is why her character (Misty) is always shown wearing a jacket or sweater.
8. Sophie Nélisse (the actress who plays the younger version of Shauna Sadecki) dyed her hair brown and wore brown contact lenses to match Melanie Lynskey (the actress who plays the older version of the character).
9. Tawny Cypress (the actress who plays the adult version of Taissa) wears coloured brown eye contacts on the show. Tawny’s eyes are actually blue-green in real life.
10. The entire main cast gets their scripts episode per episode, in order to avoid leaks. Only Melanie Lynskey was granted an exception since she convinced the producers that knowing where things were going was crucial to her acting process and even then she was only given a vague outline of Season 1.
11. Tawny Cypress and Christina Ricci are from New Jersey, like their characters. Christina even played on the girls’ soccer team around the same time the past flashbacks take place.
12. The characters in the show are high school students from a fictional town in New Jersey, USA. However, many are played by foreign actors. Sophie Nélisse is Canadian, Liv Hewson and Courtney Eaton (Van and Lottie) are Australian, Ella Purnell (Jackie) is from England and Melanie Lynskey is originally from New Zealand.
13. Laura Lee was originally going to die in the pilot episode and had only one or two lines. According to Melanie Lynskey (adult Shauna), this changed because Jane Widdop greatly impressed the show’s writers at the table read.
14. Season 3 of Yellowjackets is not expected to premiere until 2025 due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes. The writers’ room reopened in September 2023, but the premiere date has been pushed back from its initial anticipation.
Well, there you have it, 14 interesting facts you might not have known about Yellowjackets. If I’ve left out something important, feel free to comment below.
Yellowjackets is available to stream on Showmax (in South Africa) and other streaming services around the globe.
To get an idea of the show’s look and feel, check out the trailer for season one below:
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