Hilary Swank on Melissa’s motifs, bite scene

Spoiler alert: This story contains spoilers for season 3 of “Yellowjackets”, episode 8, entitled “A Normal, Boring Life” streaming now on Paramount+ with Showtime.

The weekly gambling game of whom Hilary Swank would play on “Yellowjackets” came to a definitive end during the episode of 28 March, when it was revealed in the current timeline she plays as Melissa (depicted by Jenna Burgess in the timeline of the 90s). Earlier this season, Teen Melissa became a more prominent character and eventually started a romantic relationship with Teen Shauna (Sophie Nélisse).

During Friday’s episode, Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) arrives in the Virginia house of the adult daughter of Hannah (Ashley Sutton), of which she thinks it has been stalked and harassed and the person behind the stressful tape. She is shocked (while she hides herself in a cupboard!) To find out that Melissa (Swank) is not only alive – she had fallen her death years earlier – but is married To Hannah’s daughter, who has no idea who she really is.

“I love the idea of ​​all the psychology behind what someone has experienced who has experienced such a trauma,” says Swank Variety From her reaction to the first pitch of the Showrunners for adult Melissa, who was brought her about two weeks before filming started. “People who have experienced that intense of a past, how do you continue? When will it be activated? How Is it activated? And what choices do you make from there? All that is really intriguing to me. ‘

There was no script ready for her to read, but after the makers had shared their plans, she was inside. Swank was only six days on the set and had never met Lynskey before – but was thrown in a decent scene. When their characters start to fight, Shauna eventually bites Melissa’s arm before they give her a piece.

“We knew each other’s work and were fans of each other. It was a true and pure pleasure,” she says about working with Lynskey. “I think it’s great how unexpected she is. It is really nice to hit, serve and return to such a person.”

They only had to film the bite scene a few times, but the experience was very entertaining for both.

“The process is just funny,” says Swank. “The idea that something like that happens, it’s like we are 2-year-olds, because we are lagging behind our experiences emotionally. So how are we dealing with it? How am I going to let you listen to me? I’m going to bite a piece of your arm!”

Melissa “really feels like she went on” and is proud of the work she has done, says Swank – but near Shauna is not good for her. “It is only when something happens that her activates – starting with the arm bite, and maybe some things that Shauna has said to her that start to crawl back in her head – and start the spiral. It touches a kind of this crescendo of, oh my god, I remember. You remember you.

As for whether Shauna is right to think that Melissa is trying to kill her, Swank says: “I didn’t play it that way. I really feel that she was trying to find peace in her life, and that she was really trying to continue.”

Swank was not a ‘yellowjackets’ viewer when she ended up the role. “I had viewed the pilot, but to be honest, it’s too violent for me as a public member,” she says. Fortunately, meeting Burgess was a great help with the preparation process on the set.

“She was able to give the work that I would have done! If it had been a movie in which you spelled it all and you have a transfer, I would have done all that research into character history,” says Swank. “Even things you wouldn’t see, you are doing all that research. She could say,” This is where we were, and this is what we felt about each other. ” She did my homework for me! “