Liz Garbus (‘Yellowjackets’ director) on ‘tremendous challenge’ of filming Shauna’s childbirth in ‘Qui’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
“I just loved the first season of ‘Yellowjackets’,” says the two-timeEmmy winner and two-time Oscar nominee Liz Garbus, who joined the slate of directors for Season 2, helming the sixth episode titled “Qui.” “I thought it was such an original. So smart, so entertaining, so well-crafted, well-acted. I was just a huge fan. When I met the showrunners it was great synergy.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
In the episode “Qui,” the Yellowjackets revisit the highlights, humiliations and traumas of health class as Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) gives birth. “I knew this would be a remarkable, tough, exciting episode for Sophie Nélisse going through childbirth and the loss,” Garbus reveals. “The episode really had it all. It was so satisfying to direct the episode where the six adult Yellowjackets come together in Lottie’s (Simone Kessell) compound. I feel like I hit the jackpot.”
“This episode was a tremendous challenge,” the director admits. “Sophie just hurdled over that bar. She is so committed. She came into the episode with a humble amount of anxiety about it, which made her open to work and to prepare. She had it in her all along, but she is one of those actors who is never going to rest on her laurels…There were all kinds of things we were able to talk about in preparation for the episode. We also made sure to have rehearsal time and we blocked everything beforehand. We were all in that cabin. I wanted to keep it feeling alive in that small space.”
“So much of the trauma that’s informing these adults is really being seeded in these episodes,” Garbus explains. “In the second season, and in my episode, we were able to tie those characters together — exploring the trauma that happened in the wildnerness that made them the adults who they are today. In terms of my approach, every actor is totally different. It’s not so much about the different timelines, it’s about the actors and supporting them with what they need.”
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