Yellowjackets star Sophie Nélisse listened to Harry Styles while filming the birth episode
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Warning: This post contains spoilers from Yellowjackets season 2, episode 6, "Qui."
Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) is no stranger to trauma, but the latest blow was particularly devastating. After months of being pregnant in the wilderness, it was finally time for her to give birth. And her baby didn't survive.
When Yellowjackets actress Sophie Nélisse first read the script for the episode, titled "Qui," she panicked. "I felt so pressured because it's very centered around my character," she says. "I remember sitting with [director] Liz [Garbus]. I just remember looking up from my script and I started sobbing. I was like 'I'm not good enough for this, I can't do it.'"
With Garbus, Nélisse prepared for the episode by watching YouTube videos, talking to women about their childbirth experiences, and even watching clips from The Handmaid's Tale, which Garbus directed. "It's definitely different than anything I've ever had to play and tapping into something I can't relate to, which was really interesting," Nélisse says.
Kailey Schwerman/SHOWTIME Sophie Nélisse on 'Yellowjackets'
When it came time to film the episode, surrounded by her cast, she was up to the task. "It was so fun to feel supported by all the other girls," Nélisse says. "They were giving me so much to play off of."
Nélisse also relied on music to help her get through the grueling day of filming. Between takes of the final scene, in which Shauna wakes up to realize that her baby didn't survive, she'd put her AirPods in to help keep her in the zone. "I was listening to, for some reason, 'Fine Line' by Harry Styles," she says. "It wrecks me. I don't know why it gets me, but I have a whole playlist of sad songs, it's called Rough Day at the Office. From week to week it will change, but for some reason, 'Fine Line' gets to me."
"I'll usually have my earphones in right before the take and take them out right before action," she continues. "I have to listen before and then stay in that emotion."
New episodes of Yellowjackets drop Fridays on streaming and on-demand and air on Showtime Sundays.
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