if Ted Lasso was the uplifting comedy that helped millions of people through the quarantine phase of the pandemic, Showtime’s Yellow jackets is the drama that reflects our collective survival.
The series explores what happens when a high school girls soccer team plane crashes into the remote wilderness in a 1996 story and contemporary timeline that points to a greater mystery that may explain how they survived and the long-term effects of the tragedy.
Yellow jackets has translated his large and vocal online hive to seven Emmy nominations, including outstanding drama series; a few nods to the married creators, Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson; and for two of the four central stars, Melanie Lynskey and Christina Ricci.
The two makers talk about the show’s complicated casting process, its tortuous timelines and the many questions they want to answer.
Congratulations on the seven Emmy nominations. Were you surprised by the TV Academy’s response to the show?
ASHLEY LYLE The word I would use is gobsmacked! (laughs.) We were so surprised, in such an incredible way. We crossed our fingers for some of them, but didn’t dare to dream. It was an incredibly nice surprise.
BART NICKERSON I was surprised but also so happy. We’re so proud of what we’ve created with all these people, and it’s the best feeling to have all these nominations.
LYLE It’s a pain too, because we love all four performances – we’re biased that Tawny Cypress and Juliette Lewis were robbed!
NIKERSON I can say with total objectivity that they were robbed.
LYLE It’s such an incredible team. The whole cast texted each other. They are all so supportive. You hear about shows with resentment under [their] form; that’s not the case here, everyone is so excited.
What is it about Yellow jackets which you think resonated with so many viewers?
LYLE It’s no coincidence that we’re all now starring in our own personal survival stories. That may have struck a chord with people, given the world around us. It’s important to treat that subject with the seriousness it deserved and the incredibly dark humor we live with every day.
How much do you think the nostalgia factor helped the show?
LYLE It must be part of it. It also helps that our actresses are so good. I forgot Melanie started in the 90’s because she’s done an incredible job for so long. Christina and Juliette are so groundbreaking for that period. Going forward, we never want the casting to feel gimmicky. We want the right person for the role and not just out of nostalgia or the wrong reasons.
What surprised you about the reactions to the show? Did you expect viewers to be so obsessed with fan theories?
LYLE We do not. We occasionally joked about taking screenshots in the room. We had some experience on The originals, which had an incredibly passionate fan base. You joke in the writer’s room when they take screenshots, but you think they won’t. It’s so selfish to think that people will spend so much time thinking about your show. But it’s incredibly satisfying – and terrifying! – that they do.
NIKERSON on the pilot, [director] Karyn Kusama said a few times that people would take screenshots of this show and that this show had that potential.
One of your Emmy nominations is for outstanding casting. How challenging was it to cast, considering you’re looking at young and older versions of the same characters?
NIKERSON Melanie was the first. She was someone we went to, and as soon as she wanted to do it, the news was that changed her life. Then it was a matter of finding the teen that suited her.
LYLE We had many lists of actresses we loved and admired. We thought about it during the development process and Melanie was at the top of our list, as were Juliette and Christina. Then it was the process of getting in touch and seeing if they responded to the script. For the younger roles, we auditioned with hundreds of actresses. It’s like putting together a puzzle. Some of the actresses we cast came in for other roles. Courtney Eaton [Lottie] read to Shauna. Samantha Hanratty [young Misty] read for [young] Natalie, and we loved how talented they were. It wasn’t the right fit, but we needed them on the show and sometimes we had this “Eureka!” moments. It was a complicated process that at times seemed insurmountable.
Did any of the fan suggestions inspire your season two casting quest?
NIKERSON Part of the casting is half way through. If you already have someone playing the 1996 version, it’s harder to cast that second person after you have the first person embodying it. It’s a level of difficulty that makes it exciting and satisfying when the fans know who it’s supposed to be. It’s like solving a puzzle – you have so few options because the character already exists.
The central theme of season one was exploring what is real and what is not. What was it about that discussion that appealed to you both?
LYLE That’s one of the big questions: what do you believe in? What is real? What not? How do you behave and how does the environment in which you find yourself determine how you behave? How much of your experience is internal versus external? How much of it do you generate yourself or react to the world around you? Everyone struggles with that sometimes. We strongly believe that telling TV stories is about trying to figure things out. We got into this because we wanted to ask more questions than provide answers, and we will continue to do so.
NIKERSON We will not come to the end here and have prepared a great statement about the psycho-spirituality of humanity. We are curious what we can learn about it ourselves.
On a mystery box show like this, is it important to answer every question you ask?
LYLE It’s important to answer or dig into the plot questions we ask and not let it exist as a theoretical mystery. We want to answer who is blackmailing the Yellowjackets. What does it all mean and what is the point of human experience? Those are questions that we cannot fully answer. But we don’t want to leave people hanging at the plot level.
What are the challenges of writing a show with two time periods and multiple mysteries?
LYLE We joke that our next show is a two-handed office comedy set in three locations. It is much! We didn’t think about that when we were developing it and we didn’t doubt how difficult it would be. We got into shows that were complicated with mythology. We are methodical with breaking stories by character and by timeline. There is a lot of color coding going on. It’s absolute chaos, but in a beautiful ghost kind of way. Some of it is methodical and the rest is instinctive.
NIKERSON It is difficult. A lot of that is the balance. Do the storylines work separately and sufficiently developed? If you pay close attention to the storylines, each episode has these internal arcs, and you make room for all those arcs for a balanced episode that gives all the different storylines the right weight.
Interview edited for length and clarity.
This story first appeared in a standalone August issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.