Van's Yellowjackets attack was almost ruined because wolves wouldn't stop wagging their tails
WARNING: This post contains spoilers from Yellowjackets season 1.
Even wolves love to have a good time.
During Yellowjackets' first season, the Showtime drama delivered a handful of shocking moments, but one in particular gave the crew a hard time: At the end of episode 7 (and going into episode 8), Van (Liv Hewson) is attacked by a wolf. Following the attack, Van's friends think she's dead, so they prepare to burn her body. And in what goes down as one of the show's most stressful scenes, the young women realize (after they've lit the pyre!) that Van is, in fact, still alive.
In the end, Van survives (all the way to adulthood!), but filming the sequence is something Hewson remembers clearly. "I got on the ground with green screen painted on my cheek and fake blood all over me," Hewson, who prefers they/them pronouns, tells EW. "When you see my face, it's me. But when you can't see my face, it's somebody else. The funeral pyre stuff, that was me. The stunt team trained me through having my leg set on fire. It was pretty intense."
Kailey Schwerman/SHOWTIME Liv Hewson on 'Yellowjackets'
When it came to the actual wolf attack, Hewson says, "That was obviously a stunt performer, and not only a stunt performer, but somebody who specifically had worked with the wolves."
Speaking of the wolves, they're actually the ones who kept messing up the scene — and probably not for the reason you're thinking. "We ran into a bit of trouble with them sort of midway through filming the attack because their tails were wagging a lot," Hewson says with a laugh. "The wolves were like, 'We're at work and we are nailing this and everybody is really happy with us!' But the problem was that they just looked like big happy dogs. It was a real issue that night."
Perhaps they were just too excited to be included in the hive!
Kailey Schwerman/SHOWTIME Liv Hewson's character Van is attacked by a wolf on 'Yellowjackets'
Yellowjackets returns for season 2 on Friday, March 24, on Showtime.
Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.
Related content:
