How the Yellowjackets Assembled One of the Hottest Casts on Television

Finding a single ensemble cast to create a show about a high school football team that becomes cannibals after a horrific plane crash has always been a challenge. Now imagine you’re looking for two actors, one to portray the 1996 timeline and one to represent the survivors in the present.

somehow Yellow jackets was able to make both sets, but the process was not without turbulence. (Too early?)

“It really felt like the production was putting pressure on us,” the co-author said Bart Nickerson said “And it was, ‘Oh my God, we have so many roles to fill and we’re not getting the right people,’ but then it kind of comes together hours and hours and hours later.”

Nickerson and his partner and wife on the screenplay Ashley Lyle were heavily involved in the casting, which Lyle described as “emotionally devastating.”

“Oh man, it’s just a rough day,” she added. “I have a lot of sympathy for every person who walked into the room.”

Although they cast two people to play the same character, physical consistency was not a top priority for the creative team.

“We said early on that this is a really big challenge, and I think we really need to focus on the essence of the character, rather than the specifics of his physical features,” Lyle explained, “and in doing that, we ended up with actors who, in a strange way, which surprisingly could all be very similar.”

Nickerson added, “We can’t believe the cast we have.”