‘Yellowjackets’ Star Samantha Hanratty on Her Pilot Callback and Filming Iconic Pit Girl Scenes

[This story contains major spoilers from the season three finale of Yellowjackets, “Full Circle.”]

Nobody knew why Misty was smirking in the pilot of Yellowjackets — not even Samantha Hanratty, the actor who plays her.

Hanratty was the only castmember in the Showtime survival series who filmed the original “Pit Girl” scenes in the show’s first-ever episode. After an unknown girl (who we now know is Mari, the teenager played by Alexa Barajas) is captured and eaten, Hanratty is seen taking off her mask and smiling. The assumption was that she was smiling after feasting on her friend. But in the season three finale, “Full Circle,” director and co-creator Bart Nickerson helmed a reframing of what we thought we knew.

The original scene was filmed with stunt actors, but Nickerson, co-creator Ashley Lyle and co-showrunner Jonathan Lisco always had Mari on the board. The cast, however, didn’t find out until closer to filming. “There was chatter that it was going to be Alexa,” Hanratty tells The Hollywood Reporter. “That’s the hard thing about these very intense death sequences; when one person finds out, it travels quick!” Still, they all learned something new about their characters once they got the script, and Hanratty realized that assumptions about Misty were dead wrong.

Misty was actually secretly helping Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) carry out a rescue plan to climb to the top of a mountain and use the SAT phone they had fixed from the scientists to call for help. Van (Liv Hewson) and Hanna (Ashley Sutton) also helped, much to the ire of Antler Queen Shauna (Sophie Nélisse), whose wrath is sure to be felt when the show returns. [Yellowjackets has not yet been renewed.]

Below, in conversation with THR, Hanratty goes inside the making of both Pit Girl scenes (while pregnant; she had her son two months after filming wrapped) to explain how the pilot was a memory while the finale was the reality: “This is a group of teenagers and a lot of them are scared and didn’t really want this.” She also looks ahead to what rescue will be like for Misty knowing the tragic adult that she becomes (played by Christina Ricci) and shares a few predictions about the pending season four.

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When we chatted at the beginning of the season, you and Sophie Thatcher said Misty and Nat will be bonded forever after this season. I thought you were talking about Coach’s death, but then in the finale, we see you taking off your mask and smiling, calling back to the pilot, and now we know why you are smiling. What was your inner monologue when filming that moment?

It is so cool because this is so reminiscent of the pilot. Everyone has always wondered what that smirk was all about from day one. I always thought of it as me saying, “I know something you don’t know… and when you find out, it’s going to be crazy.” But I never knew what that thing was! Now we know. I’m thinking, “I told you so… I told you it was crazy!” It was a proud moment that we pulled it off. Misty doesn’t know if their plan has worked, but she has faith that Natalie’s going to get things done the way she needs to.

In the pilot, we thought you were smiling about eating Pit Girl.

Yes. You don’t see me much in the pilot. I’m really a happy Yellowjackets fan girl. But I was the only one who actually filmed [the pilot] out in Mammoth [Mountain in Mammoth Lakes, California] when we did the original Pit Girl stuff. We see me a couple of times in the episode, but the main reveal is where I take off the mask and you see that it’s Misty under there.

In this new footage, we didn’t see you until that smile, which was a cool misdirect. This was your showrunners’ plan from the beginning of the show.

Yes.

They had it on their board that Mari (Alexa Barajas) was always Pit Girl. When did they tell you?

They told me nothing, even when we filmed the pilot. I remember recording the Antler Queen scene and sending it to Courtney [Eaton] and being like, “Look how good you look.” We filmed the pilot with all stunt doubles, and I really thought the Antler Queen was going to be Courtney as Lottie when I filmed it.

I believe it was during season two that we started getting ideas like, “Okay, that’s probably Liv [Hewson] as Van who is at edge of the pit with the pink converse sneakers on.” We started piecing certain things together, but we weren’t one hundred percent sure until we were there on the day getting this finale script.

What we see is a mix of the original pilot scenes with new scenes you filmed, which were directed by your co-creator Bart Nickerson. How much did you re-film?

There were some things that were re-filmed and other things that weren’t. The idea that I got was that the pilot Pit Girl stuff was a memory of what the survivors remember. Whereas this was the reality of what it all was.

That’s really interesting. [Read the showrunners talking about this.]

(Laughs) It’s such a fun show, I’m always piecing together my own puzzles. But with the pilot, it was almost so polished that now, when you see the reality of it all, I think it’s more terrifying because it shows that this is just a group of teenagers. This is a group of teenagers and a lot of them are scared and didn’t really want this.

In the pilot, I didn’t fully know what it was that Misty knew and how involved she was in the hunt. When I found out it was going to be Mari, I’m like, “Oh, Misty must be stoked about this,” because they’ve always had animosity. But that’s not how I felt when we were filming it. And I think it’s because Misty likes to play all different sides of the coin, because she loves power and wants to feel that power. But towards the end, she really knows that difference between right and wrong, and that Shauna’s fully lost her damn mind! And that she’d rather be on the side with Natalie, trying to fix things.

You re-filmed the smile.

Yes. In the pilot, it’s right after we ate Pit Girl… Mari! And now it’s actually when we’re at the huts. That [feast is] over, and now it’s all about Misty’s plan with Natalie.

We as an audience hear a voiceover from Melanie Lynskey’s Adult Shauna saying, “I haven’t remembered what we did out there, and now I’m remembering how much we loved it.” In this adult timeline, we know that Tai (Tawny Cypress) hasn’t really remembered things either, because of other Tai taking over. But with Misty (Christina Ricci), how much do you think she remembers?

I feel like she remembers quite a bit! But she sees it in the Misty lens. Misty has done a lot of things that aren’t necessarily the most appropriate or correct, and I think she’s able to let go of things that other people have done unless it’s aimed towards her. When people do things that are wrong, she’s able to justify those actions unless they’ve harmed her. Then she puts that in the back of her mind and is going to want some sort of revenge at some point.

How much guilt is your Misty carrying about breaking the airplane transponder, and is this now her moment of redemption?

One of the things that’s so interesting about Misty, and very different than myself, is that she doesn’t carry much guilt. She is somebody who is thinking in the moment. I don’t think she’s carried this strong feeling that what they’ve become is because of what she did [by destroying the transponder after the crash]. She’s very much about whatever is going to get her by right now. She realizes, “Oh, I have this thing and I can help!” She sees herself as the hero in that moment. But I don’t think it’s because she needs the redemption from what she did in the past. At least myself, I would not have been able to live this long by keeping that in if she really felt the guilt and the weight of it all.

Now that we’ve seen what Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) put them through in the wilderness, and how especially Natalie and Misty are so up against her, how can they even coexist in present day? I guess now with the finale we’re seeing that they can’t. But do you think dynamics shift after they’re rescued?

I think there’s a bond they all are going to have. They’ve all done really terrible things. They all ate their friends! They all, you know, ate a child [Javi]. They all did what they had to to survive, but also did other things that weren’t okay that didn’t have anything to do with survival. I think there is so much more story to be told between these teenagers and where they’re at versus when they’re going to see each other again in how many years as adults. There’s so much story to be told and certain bonds out there that we’ve been able to see already, with Taissa and Shauna and Misty with Natalie [Juliette Lewis]. But I think there will be other bonds that will tie people in even more.

How eager do you imagine Misty will be when rescue comes, and have you imagined what she’s like when she assimilates back into society?

I have thought about it a lot. I’m not going to lie, it makes me very sad for her. I don’t think it’s going to go the way she thinks it’s going to go. She’s imagining that they’re all going to be best friends. It really struck me when I heard Adult Misty, Christina, say that she’d never been to a sleepover. I’m like, “Wow, so they never have a sleepover in the future.” I’m sure a couple of them do, but not with Misty. That struck me that they are going to go about their own lives without her, and I think she’s somebody who’s not able to let go of the bonds she’s created.

I do think they’re going to do something bad when they get back. I have a feeling that Misty is going to have to start cleaning up messes sooner than later, which I’m looking forward to!

There are still a handful of people in the past who we don’t see in the future…

Yep!

You as a cast had your own Pit Girl theories before you knew. Reddit threads predicted Mari, but then the introduction of frog scientist Hanna (Ashley Sutton) threw people off. You told me you had a few guesses and one was right.  

I’ve had my theories on all of the deaths this year, and there were definitely more deaths than I had anticipated, but I always kind of thought it was going to be Mari. When I met Ashley [Sutton] and I saw them putting her hair extensions in, I was like, “Oh, this has to be Pit Girl.” Then I did my own investigating. I asked her if we got picked up for another season, if she’d be coming back or not. She was keeping it quite vague. But there’s always chatter in the tent [on set], and there was chatter that it was going to be Alexa.

I think a couple of people found out before I knew and before Alexa even knew. Sometimes that’s the hard thing about these very intense death sequences; when one person finds out, it travels quick! But it was bittersweet because it’s such a big moment to finally find out who that is and how it all happens. But I will say I’m quite devastated because I love Alexa and think she’s so fantastic. I’m very sad that she found the pit to begin with and she survived, and then got brought back to it at the end of the season.

Everyone who escapes something tends to get it in the end, that seems to be a theme.

Uh-huh.

We all knew it was coming but seeing it was brutal. What shocked you when filming it and bringing them to this place of no return?

Seeing everybody in their costumes made it so surreal, to actually put faces to who these people were out there was so exciting for me as a fan of the show. I was geeking out about who was who. I always thought that Shauna was going to be the bunny, and then I saw that it was Melissa [Jenna Burgess]!

But I was entering my third trimester when we were filming that. So I was super pregnant! For a good amount of the running, thank god I had my stunt double. Not only could I not see because of this giant mask, but I’m also super pregnant so I can’t fall. So I was really able to watch as an audience member for a lot of it because I was at the monitors watching everybody do their stuff. The most full-on body chills I got was the dragging of Mari and seeing her face. I had seen it so many times in the pilot of the hair and the blood. But then actually seeing it be her gave me goosebumps. They filmed it for a while and I was just like a mom behind the monitor taking pictures and videos like, “I can’t believe this is happening to my girl!”

The impression we walk away with from the pilot is that these girls are enjoying themselves. But now we see how depressed most them are, even through the masks. What is Misty thinking at the feast? Is she depressed or, quite literally, swallowing it and moving forward?

I think that’s such a great way to describe Misty: swallowing it and moving forward. The way that I kept my mind busy was almost zoning out and focusing on where Natalie is and how it’s going. Like, we have a mission that’s happening behind the scenes that they don’t know about, and I can’t let them know that I know about it, so it was really about keeping that poker face on. I don’t think that Misty is one to really be sitting there thinking, “Oh my god, this is Mari that I’m eating right now.” She has other things to do. The time to be sad is for later.

There were so many deaths this season. Which one surprised you most?

I kind of knew that it was going to happen with Steven [Krueger], with Coach Ben, this season, but I wasn’t sure how it was going to happen. It was definitely the most emotional for me to film because not only was it Misty losing the “love of her life,” but it was me as Samantha saying goodbye to one of my biggest scene partners of the show. It was really devastating. That was definitely the most emotional. But watching the show and seeing how everything unfolded, Van’s [Lauren Ambrose] death really just killed me. I love Lauren and it was rough to watch. And Joel [McHale]! I’ll throw Joel in there too, because it was short-lived and what we did to his poor head with all the arrows was really messed up! (Laughs)

I’m glad you called that out because it was such a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment.

I think that shows where these girls are at. They’re just ruthless.

Lottie’s death also called back the first season and her premonition about where she dies. I thought when Lottie (Simone Kessell) first put the necklace on Callie (Sarah Desjardins) that Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) flipped out because she was marking her daughter for death. But in Lottie and Callie’s final conversation, it seemed like there was a different meaning to the necklace.

I know nothing about the necklace. I’m just happy that Misty hasn’t had to wear it yet!

It really seems like the mystical wilderness has the least hold on Misty, and that continues into adulthood.

Yeah, I don’t think Misty’s ever really bought into it. I think she’s too pragmatic. She’s just too logical, and even if there are things out there that happened that were a little unexplainable, I think she’s the type to be like, “Well, yep, you know, stranger things have happened!”

Was there anything in the wilderness storyline that shocked you most this season?

Episode six is definitely my favorite, because I am so obsessed with that ending. I was so surprised when we had frog scientists coming in. I loved everybody that was a part of it — Nelson [Franklin] and Ashley and Joel, it was so great to have them there. But that was such a shock to me, such a surprise. And especially the way they find us: in our heads, we’re harmonizing with the wilderness and in reality, when they step in, you can really hear us and how we sound — and we sound crazy. Because we we are crazy.

It’s also been fun to watch all of the dream sequences and the cave sequences as a fan, because I wasn’t there when they filmed those. Seeing that all come to life has been a big, “What the hell is happening?!” Every episode I’m always on the edge my seat when I read the scripts and really excited to see what Misty’s going to do next. This season in particular, I was really engulfed in everybody else’s storylines, too. Shauna shooting Melissa was also one of those moments of like, “how far is she going to go?” This season has definitely been a hard watch for the Shaunas for me!

All of us are able to look at our characters and understand them in a certain light and in a certain way, but Shauna is definitely a tough one to justify some of the stuff recently.

Some of the other cast members I’ve spoken to have said the show needs two more seasons to finish it up. Do you agree there’s a lot more story to tell and what are you most looking forward to?

It would be amazing if we could get five seasons and really finish out the story and finish out what made them who they are in full. Also, it feels like they’re all dropping like flies, so who’s going to survive towards the end?! But I’m definitely looking forward to seeing rescue and how they come up with the plan of keeping things to themselves.

I could see Misty wanting to go on Oprah and scream that she’s a survivor and wanting that spotlight, but then also knowing that, to be in with this group, she has to be quiet. I also love the idea of meeting these families! I want to know what Misty’s parents are like. I’ve always thought of her as an only child, but I want to know what her world looks like. I want them to hire somebody really cool for my parents! Who’s finishing out high school? What’s graduation look like? I’m so curious about all these things.

But I’m also looking forward to seeing what happens right after where we left off. I want to know what Shauna’s going to do with Natalie when Natalie comes back. I want to know where these power dynamics are going to lie.

Have you imagined what they do to Hanna?

Yeah, it hasn’t been pretty! (Laughs) I don’t think she’s gonna make it out of the woods. But if she does, I don’t think it would be for very long, but I don’t see that happening for her.

The biggest burning question left is… where is Crystal’s body?

That’s the one that haunts me! Because my lovely Nuha [Jes Izman, who played Crystal] I just adore and love. I just want to find Crystal — at least her body, at least her clothes. Shauna gets to wear Jackie’s [Ella Purnell] stuff. Why can’t Misty get to wear Crystal’s stuff? (Laughs)

As the present-day storyline narrows its cast, your chances of being the final survivor get greater. Misty being the final girl would be the ultimate Yellowjackets twist. Do you think about that?

I’ve been reading theories. I would be pretty stoked. I think she deserves it. In the beginning, I think everyone saw her as the villain, but she’s turned out to be one of the possibly only redeemable ones out there now that Van’s gone. I really love what they wrote for her this year in both storylines, you get to enjoy her the most this season.

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Yellowjackets season three is now streaming on Paramount+ With Showtime. Check out THR‘s season three finale interviews, including with the showrunners, Alexa Barajas, Sarah Desjardins, Melanie Lynskey, Tawny Cypress and Christina Ricci, Courtney Eaton and Sophie Thatcher.