11 facts you might not know about Yellowjackets

Feb 21
Written by Sophie Perry

Yellowjackets is finally back on our screens and there is a lot you probably don’t know about the hit show.

The Emmy-nominated survival series follows a high-school girls’ soccer team who, while flying to a national tournament in Seattle, crash in the wilderness, leaving them to work together for survival.

The show is set in dual timelines, chronicling the team’s days in the wild in the 90s and the impact their isolation continues to have on their older selves in the present.

“Distrust in leadership and tension within the team jeopardise their chances of being rescued. In the present, long-buried secrets from their pasts begin to surface,” the synopsis for season three reads.

Here are 11 facts you might not know about the show and its stars.

The cast of Yellowjackets in the woodland with a silhouette with horns behind them. — *Yellowjackets* is back on our screens. (Showtime)

1. It’s partly inspired by a real-life disaster

In October 1972, a flight from Montevideo, in Uruguay, to Chile’s capital, Santiago, in Chile, crashed high up in the Andes.

On board were five crew members and 40 passengers, including 19 players from the Old Christians rugby union team, alongside their families, supporters and friends.

Twelve people were killed instantly and several more lost their lives in the freezing snow as they huddled in the wreckage of the fuselage in the days that followed. Those who survived resorted to cannibalism to stay alive before two of them walked for 10 days to find civilisation and safety. Forty-eight hours before Christmas – and after 72 days – the remaining 14 survivors of Flight 571 were rescued.

The team is left to survive in the wilderness. (Paramount+)

The original search had been called off after eight days.

The story has been committed to the screen before, most famously in Frank Marshall’s 1993 Alive, which starred Ethan Hawke.

2. The dummy for Jackie’s body was made out of rice paper and jackfruit

The cast nicknamed the dolly Jackie-fruit, a cute moniker for a grotesque prop.

Jonathan Lisco, who wrote the episode in which the teens eat Jackie’s dead body and imagine themselves enjoying a decadent feast, said: “Our young cast, who knew they were about to do something intense, was, in some ways, mimicking art because they were using humour 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.”

3. Van was originally meant to be killed off in season one

Teenage Van wasn’t supposed to last long but thanks to star Liv Hewson’s compelling performance the character was kept going.

Series creator Ashley Lyle admitted they had “toyed around with a tragic death for Van” but the writers decided it was funnier for her to keep cheating death over and over again.

(L-R): Liv Hewson as Teen Van, Samantha Hanratty as Teen Misty and Jasmin Savoy Brown as Teen Taissa in season one of Yellowjackets (Kailey Schwerman/SHOWTIME)

4. Jasmin Brown identifies as a pansexual lesbian

A number of the cast identify as queer: Hewson is gay and non-binary while Nicole Maines, who plays teen Lisa, is trans.

Meanwhile, Jasmine Brown, who plays Taissa as a teenager, uses pansexual and lesbian because “both feel true, depending on the moment and depending on the day”.

She has said: “If we’re going to police people’s labels, we’re kind of policing people’s genitals.

“If you’re saying I’m still a lesbian if I have sex with a trans man, but I’m not still a lesbian if I have sex with a cis man, then you’re saying trans men aren’t men, and [that] I’m not capable of deciding my own identity.”

5. Christina Ricci was pregnant during the filming of season one

Former child star Christina Ricci’s daughter was born in December 2021, while season one was on the air.

Samantha Hanratty, who plays the teenage Misty, was pregnant during the filming of season three.

6. The set for the plane crash was made from a real aircraft, cut in half

… And real fire was used during the pivotal crash scene.

7. Christina Ricci is a survivalist stan

8. Samantha Hanratty originally auditioned for the role of Natalie

Yellowjackets — Samantha Hanratty as teenage Misty (Kailey Schwerman/Showtime)

Hanratty originally tried out for the role of teenage Natalie, the part which eventually went to Sophie Thatcher.

But there was no ill-feeling. “She’s incredible, I can’t even touch what she’s got going on,” Hanratty said. “If I’m being totally honest, I think I misread it because I kind of went for more of a goth approach than this cool, grungy 90s girl.

“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.”

9. Melanie Lynskey is no stranger to queer entertainment

Melanie Lynskey school homophobic troll again. (Getty) — Melanie Lynskey. (Getty)

She has starred in But I’m a Cheerleader, alongside RuPaul, The Last of Us and Heavenly Creatures.

10. The school scenes were shot at the same location as Grease and Hannah Montana

John Marshall High School, in Los Angeles, has a long list of film credits, also including School of Rock, Pretty in Pink and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.