Jennifer Morrison has entered the wilderness.
Warning — spoilers below.
The “Once Upon a Time” actress, 45, directed the fourth episode of “Yellowjackets” Season 3, titled “12 Angry Girls and 1 Drunk Travis,” which saw the survivors in the wilderness put Coach Ben (Steven Krueger) on trial for kidnapping Mari (Alexa Barajas) and burning down their cabin.
In the present day, Lottie (Simone Kessell) is shockingly murdered in a major cliffhanger.
In an exclusive interview with The Post, Morrison revealed the Oscar-nominated film that inspired her directorial work shooting Coach Ben’s trial, how she learned about Lottie’s death from producers, and what viewers can expect from the next episode she directed.
New York Post: How did you end up directing two episodes of Season 3?
Jennifer Morrison: As they were going into Season 3, they had some slots open up and were willing to meet with some new directors. I had a meeting with [producer] Drew [Comins] and his company, and he saw my passion for the show and saw that I was no joke into it. After all of that, I think we all felt aligned and on the same page.
At that point, they had asked me to come and do Episode Four, and then sort of in the midst of four, they hadn’t quite settled the rest of their season yet. So, as I finished four, they asked if I would also do seven. So then I kind of turned right back around and came and did seven.
How was it directing the two different timelines?
The two worlds are so aesthetically different. And it’s very different dealing with veteran adult actors who’ve been in this industry for 30 years for some of them. And then these younger kids, who now feel like veterans after three years of doing this show but are definitely newer to the scene. But I guess aesthetically, it did feel like two different shows. But because the writing is just so rich in terms of the character study of it all, you feel like it all arcs together in such a beautiful way. So, even though you might feel that tug of the two different visuals, there’s just such an emotional throughline that made it feel much more continuous to me.
Coach Ben’s trial is definitely the highlight of Episode 4. Can you speak about your process in shooting that?
I felt very lucky to get that because it’s so rare on an episode of television to really be able to craft the technical side of something. So because we were in this one space in the wilderness for that whole stretch of time, I looked at it like, ‘How do I tell as much story through the camera and the lens choice as I can as we go through this?’
It definitely was a little bit of an ode to ’12 Angry Men.’ I’d always loved ’12 Angry Men,’ but I went back and looked at the movie. And one of the things that is a very memorable part of that film is the big one-take shot where they all come into the jury room for the first time and sit around the table and all these things happen. So I thought, ‘How cool would it be if we could orchestrate the entrance to the trial as a big oner with all these handoffs?’ And I felt like the script really lent itself to that. So that concept was a little bit of an ode to the movie.
Part of the reason I wanted to pull their dining table, it’s usually in a different location. I pulled that up to be sort of the jury’s seats. I wanted to sort of establish the psychological balance of when things were tipping guilty and when things were tipping innocent in terms of their reaction to things. The defendant would be on the right side, and the prosecution is on the left side. And then you’ve got the judge right in the middle. And so everybody had a seat that indicated that everybody who was on the left side of the table was leaning guilty in their opinions. And everyone who was on the right was leaning innocent in their opinions. So, I placed them all that way. And this is all stuff that no one’s going to know when they’re watching. But subliminally, subconsciously, it gets in there.
And how did you enjoy directing the present-day storyline with the adult actors?
I think the bottom line in this show comes down to the richness of the writing and all the character development that’s there and the nuance of that. But also their incredible ability with casting. They have picked such specific and interesting people, and they bring things to these characters that no one else could bring. So [working] with that group of women was just intoxicating. It was so exciting. Every take has so much life to it. And they bring something new to every single moment. You can look at something on the page and imagine how it’s going to come to life. And then they do it. You’re like, it’s even better than I imagined. So I think the biggest thing in the adult storyline was really just the excitement of watching these incredible veterans just breathe life into these characters in such a specific way.
Episode 4 ends with Lottie’s death, which totally took me by surprise. Can you confirm that she’s dead? And how did you learn about that development?
She’s dead. I killed a lot of people lately. It was a funny year of episodic directing for me, where I felt like every project I worked on, I was just killing people.
I knew when I spoke to them. They didn’t say exactly what, but they said that Episode 3 or 4 was very important to them because from that point on, everything was going to be different. That, basically before the trial, everything we’ve seen happen in the wilderness, you could kind of say, ‘Well, they were just trying to survive, or they were starving.’ There was sort of justification to a certain degree with everything up until that point. And it isn’t until the other side of the trial that you start to realize that if they were to be outed, they would all be culpable of crimes from that point on.
So that’s a huge tipping point in the energy of what people know of the series. So I think it was something that they were really wanted to make sure was handled properly and specifically. And I think along with that, what they were saying without saying it in that meeting was like, ‘And also Lottie’s gonna die.’ So, it was two major events that really changed the course of things, both in the past and in the present.
You also directed Episode 7. What can you tease?
By the time we’re on the other side of this trial, things start to get a lot murkier in the wilderness. When they’re all in a position of survival, there’s a sense of unity, even if there are factions within that unity. But when you’re on the other side of thriving and not trying to survive, and now there are factions who have very different belief systems as to whether or not they should be rescued or if they should stay. So there is a lot more tension in the wilderness within each other as opposed to like them versus the wilderness. So that starts to get really intense and murky.
And then also all the stuff in the real world starts to feel like it’s closing in because [of] the tension of who’s being followed, what’s happening. All of that starts to wind in. And, all the mysteries that have been adding up are starting to psychologically wear on all those women as well. So by the time you get to seven, it’s a lot of action and a lot of, like, intense thriller. By the time you’re there, it’s no joke. That is high-intensity television at that point.
New episodes of “Yellowjackets” stream Fridays on Paramount+.
