Editor’s Note: This article contains spoilers for Yellowjackets Season 3, Episode 8, “A Normal, Boring Life.”
When the firstYellowjacketstrailer dropped a few months ago, we were all gobsmacked by the reveal of Oscar-winning actressHilary Swankrunning for her life in the present timeline. Now, afterseven episodes of speculation, it’s finally confirmed that Swank is playing the adult version of Melissa.Jenna Burgessoriginated the character in the ’90s timeline, and thanks to her relationship with Shauna (Sophie Nélisse), she’s become a major player inSeason 3after spending much of the first two seasons on the bench.
During a recent interview with Collider’sPerri Nemirofffor Episode 8 at SXSW, “A Normal, Boring Life,” co-showrunnersJonathan LiscoandAshley Lyleand producerDrew Cominsspoke about the casting process for Swank. When asked how they went about getting the heavily decorated actress, Lisco jumped in first, saying, “We went to her. I’ve never really talked to Hilary, actually, about whether or not she was a hugeYellowjacketsfan prior to us approaching her, so we’re not really sure.” As Comins went on to explain, they needed someone who could go toe-to-toe with the already-stacked adult cast of the series. He said:
“We felt we needed an actress of gravity. Coming into a show in Season 3 is a really hard thing to do, especially given the tour de force of the talents ofMelanie [Lynskey],Christina [Ricci],Tawny [Cypress], andLauren [Ambrose]. Obviously, the legacy fromJuliette [Lewis], right?It required someone who came to play and had that incredible talent and wasn’t going to get eaten alive, pun intended, by the other women. This was someone who, quite obviously, stands her ground and can come into the character with a predisposition tomake that character a fearsome competitor and a fearsome rival to the others. So I think ultimately, looking around at the landscape, there weren’t that many people who could really fill those shoes, and she felt like someone who could bring a lot of depth. We hadn’t really seen her, without spoiling too much, do a role that had the level of sharp teeth that this character requires.”
Hilary Swank Was As Invested in “ShaunaHat” as We Are
In a deliciously twisted mirror of their first significant encounter this season, Episode 8 seesMelissa and Shauna face offagainst each other — except this time, they’re both armed. With Swank jumping into such a complicated role, not only well into the series, but well into the season itself, Nemiroff asked the creatives behind the series what kind of questions the actress had before the cameras started rolling. “The casting process is so strange because essentially, you look at the character, and you go, ‘Let’s take the biggest swing we can,'“explained Lyle. “In this particular case, it worked. That’s very rare,” she continued. “Then, after she signed on, we had a really great Zoom session, and we talked her through what we were thinking, and we talked her through the first few episodes.”
As far as Swank’s approach to the role, Lyle said she had a very “naturalistic” process. “She’s not somebody who has 10,000 questions. She was just like, ‘Okay. Okay. Alright,’ and thenshe just showed up and fucking nailed it.“And as anyone who’s seen the episode knows, she really did nail it. Comins went on to note the one area Swank really wanted to dig into was younger Melissa’s arc, particularly with Shauna. He told Nemiroff:
“What I thought was interesting was she really wanted to understand the arc of the younger version of her character, and not just from a standpoint of what was on the surface, but what was motivating the character in the minds of the writers and the storyteller. Obviously, given that there’s this wild time jump that separates those two storylines, I just thought it was an interesting approach to understand specifically as it relates to the relationship with Shauna, kind ofwhat was motivating their dynamic in the pastso that she can find ways to bring it into their dynamic in the present.”
Don’t miss Nemiroff’s full Episode 8 interview, and stream Season 3 ofYellowjacketsnow on Paramount+ with SHOWTIME.
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