Lauren Ambrose on Pitching on Yellowjackets Depicting Trauma and Working with an All Female Ensemble

Lauren Ambrose Yellow Jackets Polyester Polyesterzine Interview — Lauren Ambrose calls me early from her “cabin in the woods” home that she shares with her husband, writer Sam Handel and their two children. We begin our chat by lamenting the weather, discussing Ambrose’s enthusiasm for gardening and celebrating the newest role that she is most excited by - her daughter playing Mrs Wormwood in her school’s production of *Matilda The Musical.* “She got to do a really nasty, Essex accent,” Ambrose enthuses, agreeing that the evil mother is the best role in the stage show.

While the joy of depicting nefarious characters from children’s books can be appreciated for its straightforward silliness, Ambrose’s own role choices have always leaned towards pointedly layered performances from the New Haven born actress. Her most notorious role, Claire Fisher in HBO’s Six Feet Under over 20 years ago, brought audiences into the world of an adolescent coping with atypical family dynamics, grief and being an outcast teenager in suburbia.

Ambrose’s performance as Fisher was definitive to me as a young woman and when she got cast in Yellowjackets, a series analysing the way extreme trauma affects us as adults, it felt like a full circle moment. Joining the cast of the show as the adult equivalent of survivor Van Palmer alongside other legacy actresses, Ambrose tells me the camaraderie of the ensemble made playing Van was one of the best moments of her career. Catching her in the days between Van’s onscreen death and the season three finale, we talk about all things Yellowjackets, challenging herself and the possibility of a Six Feet Under reboot.

Let’s start with Yellowjackets - the finale is set to air tonight, how do you think the fans are going to react?

LA: I’ve not seen the finale! I haven’t watched the stuff with my character dying yet, I'm just not ready to come around to it yet. I will definitely give it a watch though, I will! I want to see everybody's work, especially the scenes Liv and I got to do together - those were really special.

When I interviewed Courtney Eaton she told me about ‘the lunch of death’ that producers take cast members on before sharing the next episode’s script - did you see adult Van’s death coming?

I definitely didn't have a death lunch - we had a ‘death call’ ahead of scripts coming out. I suppose it was more of a creative call about where the season was headed and they explained they wanted to have lots of bodies drop, people dying and raising the stakes to this fever, an intensity. And sadly Van is one of the characters that was going to have to die.

There’s probably not been an actor in the history of show business who jumped for joy when they found out that their character was going to get killed off - or maybe there has been - but, you know, it was just like, “Okay, this is how they want to tell the story and what they feel is, the best thing for the character.” It took a bit of adjustment but I wanted to tell the story with integrity and honour the character that Liv Hewson who plays the younger Van had created.

How was it working with Liv face to face for the first time in the show?

Liv and I had a conversation where we were walking around Vancouver discussing Van’s death and we were saying how much we wanted to work together and that we’d love to get some scenes together out of this story. And then Liv was brave enough to go to the writers and pitch the idea and I guess they liked it.

It was so fulfilling and satisfying to get to work together, because we both care very deeply about the character. I just love the character that Liv created so much, how bright and open and available to the world and funny this character is.

I found adult Van’s character arc so interesting - being plucked out of almost hiding and thrown back into the Yellowjackets dynamic but handling it pretty coolly.

It was a really fun acting exercise to get to share a character with someone, and then to think about how, because of the split timeline, they became this person. The thesis of the show is about how trauma plays on us and how it affects these women, in their day to day lives. How does what they went through, what they lived through, what they're holding in their bodies, and what they sometimes probably can't even bear to look at, play out in the older version of themselves?

How is Van different because of what she experienced? I love that she had her video store and has this love of pop culture and the comfort of the nostalgia of the time before they were in the wilderness. Yet there’s this hardening of not being able to look at the illness that she’s dealing with. I tried to make the energy kind of harder and dimmed, I guess, as opposed to Liv’s Van who is so open and beautiful.

How did it feel joining an ensemble of legacy actors for Yellowjackets?

That's what was so interesting to me and exciting to me when watching the first season. I was like, “I love this show because I love these women on this show and love all of their work. I want to be on this.” And then they called me up and said, “Maybe would you want to come be on it?” which was pretty cool. That was a unique experience for me to be asked to come join a show, I've never actually had that before.

It was amazing to be on a show with so many women my own age and to to all be collaborating on the same thing, instead of being up for a similar role and pit against each other. Just to look at that call sheet was really inspiring and exciting to see all of these women whose work I admire and to be able to cross all to create something together. It's great to see how these different women have navigated show business over all these years.

The green room was such an alive place for us. You know, we were often at these bizarre locations, like freezing at midnight in the woods, and we would just have these very rich conversations about life and being working mothers and navigating the Mercurial nature of show business over all these hundreds of years, and it was a really beautiful

My absolute treasure that I will take away from this job is having those times working with a big cast of fellow actresses. That's just astounding. And then also to create this character with Liv is the other treasure.

I’d kick myself if I didn’t ask more about Six Feet Under in this interview, it’s been almost 25 years since the show aired, how does that feel?

That seems hard to believe because it's such a big, important part of my life. I learned so much on so many levels and it was acting boot camp for me. It was the first time in my life where, because it was a series and we did so many seasons, that I was going to work every day to work on challenging material with extraordinary actors who I admire so much.

I learned so much from them as a young actor, I especially thinking of Frances Conroy, who played my mother. Just to watch her work, I mean, she has like a direct channel to God or something. She's just an extraordinary artist. Even the directors - Kathy Bates directed us! - and so many people who are on the show now have had these beautiful careers. It's just extraordinary.

There have been so many reboots of shows and films from the early 2000s and even though that ending of Six Feet Under is so resolute, would you ever want the show to come back?

No, I think it's pretty much good, as it is, you know, it's complete. I can't imagine. I think as you said, it was definitely pretty finite in its ending. So I think the story was told. It'll just have to stand on its own.

Though it could be one of the ones that gets cracked open again, they always seem to find a way. Maybe they can be on an alien planet for the reboot.

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