Sophie Thatcher on Female Rage, Seeing Ghosts, and Growing Up Tumblr Famous
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“When I like something. I don't just like something. I love it. I'm just obsessed.” Sophie Thatcher tells me over zoom from LA, in which a conversation that starts with us discussing her first adult pet, a cat named Gigi, ends up spanning the internet, self doubt, scream queens and spirituality. The 22 year old actor's video call background of choice is littered with posters. I can’t quite make out which are showcasing her favourite films and which are displaying the bands that she spends hours down an internet rabbit hole googling, but one thing is obvious; Sophie, at her core, is a fangirl. “I go to the fullest extent, and dive as deep as possible. it's just like me at my core wanting to know more and wanting all the information.”
Sophie’s breakout character, Natalie in Yellowjackets, is also someone that could be described as obsessed. But while the former channels her obsession into the pursuit of cultural knowledge and artistic practices, her character in season two, Natalie, is forced to spend her days endlessly hunting prey to catch and kill for her teammates to eat. Yellowjackets, was undeniably a sleeper hit. The show’s first season quietly dropped via a streaming service in the UK weeks after its US premiere, and spent its initial run building a cult audience by proving it was for the girls.
Not a patriarchal, male-gaze driven fantasy that a horror series following a girls high school football team as they descend into cannibalism so easily could be. But a complex interrogation of the teenage feminine psyche; as well as how trauma shapes our adult lives. Weaving humour with horror, and trauma with camaraderie, the series found itself the focus of online obsession and fandom; with Reddit set alight with theories pertaining to why the women ended up doing the unthinkable - eating eachother.
Yet, despite fan conspiracies that range from baby-eating to the paranormal, Yellowjackets remains a show that is about more than cannibalism. Sophie attributes its ability to steer clear of parody to the show's writers. “I was really happy that most of the characters had a backstory within the first season. So you can build empathy, you can build a connection to these characters and it's not rushing into anything.” She continues, “We were taking our time to build up to the cannibalism moment. And I think if our show had started off with that, it wouldn't have felt like it was justified.”
“It’s interesting that women's rage is depicted in a very glamourised way, or stylised in an unrealistic way. I think it's really nice within Yellowjackets to see us completely stripped down and bare - it's gritty.”
The show's secondary timeline, set in the present day, proves that the story doesn’t end when the cannibalism begins. With the big reveal of how the girls turn on one and other playing out in the first portion of season two, Sophie is keen to impress that, “Once they've gone to this point, this is as dark as it gets. And it's only going to get worse.” Confronting one of society's great taboos may feel as though there's more room to shock, but Sophie believes otherwise, saying, “Once you start this, you can't go back. Everyone is just holding so much guilt that they will just live with them for the rest of their lives. And this is just the beginning of the guilt.”
Despite being immersed in the horror genre within Yellowjackets, as well as in her latest role as Sadie in the film adaptation of Stephen King’s The Boogeyman, Sophie holds some reservations as to how the genre as a whole represents women. “It’s interesting that women's rage is depicted in a very glamourised way, or stylised in an unrealistic way. I think it's really nice within Yellowjackets to see us completely stripped down and bare - it's gritty.” She’s rightly picky about the roles she choses, and while her career may be blossoming in the horror genre, she’s cautious of not falling into tired tropes that lead to stereotypes. “I think the same with Boogeyman. I'm definitely the final girl and she has such a good character arc. And she's not just you know, the girlfriend or the other. It's empowering to have such a full story.”
So often, horror is the only place in which women are able to see female rage depicted - but, as Sophie agrees, it's an incomplete representation, and one that often positions girls as monstrous creatures to be feared. “It can turn into hysteria. And that we can be put into a very specific category that feels very backwards.” Due to the nature of a series, there is no room for the characters in Yellowjackets to become stereotypes. Natalie may be the alt girl, or Misty the nerd, and Jackie the Cheerleader; but lost in the wilderness, high school archetypes dissolve into irrelevancy. The audiences are forced to sit in these young women’s feelings; and acknowledge their pure discomfort rather than being constantly bombarded with jump scares. “When it comes to rage, men will be very pushed far away from it, and they will never understand. That's also something that I think with Yellowjackets, there's a bit of a disconnect with male audiences.”
Natalie is a cynic. As her teammates descend into cult-like behaviour at the hands of Lottie, Nat holds firm; prioritising their survival over praying to the gods of the forest. Her cynicism is an armour as well as a coping mechanism, born from an extreme fear of being vulnerable. One that Sophie can relate to, “I think there was a point when I was younger in which I was very stuck in believing that there's not another spiritual realm.” She explains, “I was very stuck in very pessimistic beliefs.” She tells me that while visiting the soon to be torn down, former home of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sophie felt a tap on her shoulder. “My friends were all in the other room. And that was that. It was just that, but I love that it was an author. That was absolutely insane.” After that small encounter, as well as being surrounded by a more open group of people, Sophie finds herself “very interested in what else could be out there. I'm just more open minded now.”
Growing up in Chicago, Sophie and her twin Ellie both spent their teen years chronically online. “I found everything. I was deep in the internet with music. I had a SoundCloud account really early on. I was like 10.” The sisters were lifelong creative collaborators, with Ellie currently working in the fine art space as Sophie focuses on acting and soon-to-be-released music projects. As they grew into adulthood, the sisters distanced themselves from their creative partnership, something that Sophie describes as feeling “natural, and the healthiest option because both of us, I think me more so, I'm very competitive. It helped us form a tighter bond because to some extent - it feels like I get to see myself and what could have been if I had chosen a different artistic route. It makes us a stronger pair.”
While the twins once delegated different mediums to one or the other, Sophie has found herself now creating visual art for joy. “It's funny that in my head for so long I was like, ‘no, this is Ellie's thing.’ She says, “No matter what I do, because I'm naturally competitive, my head is like, 'you’re not good enough.' But the more that I draw and make art I notice that the voices in my head are a little bit less judgmental. Even if it doesn't look great. I can start over.”
As she learns to create without expectation, Sophie has found herself returning to her pre-teen social media platform of choice; Tumblr. A platform she first used to create a not-unpopular shoegaze blog titled ‘April Skies’ as an ode to The Jesus and Mary Chain - and a blog I'm almost sure I followed myself. “I took it really seriously and would spend like three hours a day posting. I had some followers, but nobody knew. I was like this 12 year old girl that was very big on the internet.”
Now, her relationship with the digital world isn't one she enjoys. While she can spend hours pouring over renaissance references and mediaeval art pages, being a public figure means that she is also privy to what the entire world thinks of her at any given moment. “I deleted Instagram today. It's like I delete it every other day. And I think now I'm just learning to not look at comments and not let that get to me because I'm so vulnerable and like, I'll read everything.” Where she used to just be able to post her art and leave, she's now subject to people judging her character as a whole.
But instead of pandering to the thoughts of thousands of strangers, Sophie is working on separating herself from her digital identity. “I know that's not me. And you don't actually get to know me until you sit down and talk to me. So it's like, I'm putting out some kind of persona. There's a disconnect. I can't take it seriously. The very serious part of me is artistic and I am glad that I'm confident enough to put out the art, but it's still not who I really am.”
It's a safety that, again, comes from obsession: Whether burrowing into her roles, or finding a movie she loves and completely embodying it. “When I was younger, because I was a little uncomfortable with whatever I was feeling at the time, I would find an obsession and run with it. So my approach to the internet is kind of just that. I think it's important to keep most of my personal life pretty separate.” Obsession is Sophies’ escapism, and along with art, provides a framework for her to survive. “My entire life has just been playing different characters, even when I'm not acting.”
Photographer: Kirt Barnett | Writer: Ione Gamble | Set Designer: Kelly Jean Ross | Stylist: Michy Milli | MUA: Rob Rumsey | Hair: Sully Layo | Photo Assistant: Emma Sophia Valles
Styling Credits:
LOOK ONE - Hat: Riza The Label | Dress Nastya Masha | Leggings: Nastya Masha | Shoes: Baby Phat | Gloves: r3roc | Wristband: r3roc
LOOK TWO - Dress: Yousef Akbar | Bracelet: Georgina Jewelry
LOOK THREE - Dress: Annakiki | Shoes: Camilla Gabrieli
LOOK FOUR - Top: Miaou | Skirt: Miaou | Shoes: Prada
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