Simone Kessell cast as adult 'Lottie' in 'Yellowjackets Season 2'
Aug 17, 2022
Washington [US], August 18 : 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' star Simone Kessell is joining the second season of Showtime's Yellowjackets as the adult Lottie Matthews.
According to Variety, in the first season of "Yellowjackets," Courtney Eaton's character Lottie, who is portrayed as a teenage girl, became the main adversary. Lottie was a wealthy child whose parents gave her soccer team, the Yellowjackets, a private plane so they could travel to nationals. After the plane crashed in the woods, where the show's 1996 timeline is set, Lottie was forced to stop taking her anti-psychotic medicine. Season 1's sole adult survivors in its 2021 timeline were Tawny Cypress, Juliette Lewis, and Emmy candidates Melanie Lynskey as Shauna and Christina Ricci as Misty (Taissa).
But in the season finale, as Nat was about to kill to herself, she was instead kidnapped from her motel room by four sweat-suited people -- as we heard Nat's ex-sponsor leaving a desperate voicemail for her, saying in part: "I think someone is following me. Who the fuck is Lottie Matthews?"
Lottie, who was off her medication and in the bush, grew to be a more contentious member of the group. She gained a following because she seemed to have visions of the future. The last scene of the season had Samantha Hanratty's Misty and Liv Hewson's Van standing behind Eaton's Lottie as she placed a bear's bloodied heart in an altar made out of a tree stump. She had previously been identified as the enigmatic Antler Queen, who could be seen in the pilot presiding over a feast among the girls that involved cannibalism.
Eaton has also been elevated to a series regular for Season 2 according to the statement from Showtime.
Jonathan Lisco, Ashley Lyle, and Bart Nickerson are the owners and creators of "Yellowjackets." To avoid stigmatising mental illness with the character, Lisco said in an interview with Variety regarding the finale: "We will bend over backwards to ensure that those two things are not confounded." However, the programme will also examine if Lottie is a "conduit of an energy, a dark force, larger than she is," or whether there is "something about her psychiatry and her makeup that is leading her to act in a certain way."
For its first season, "Yellowjackets" received seven Emmy nominations, including the points for best drama series, writing, directing, and casting, in addition to the nods for Lynskey and Ricci's acting. Kessell is represented by Buchwald.