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‘Stranger Things’ Characters Sorted Into Their Hogwarts Houses

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‘Stranger Things’ Characters Sorted Into Their Hogwarts Houses

In celebration of Return to Hogwarts, and in anticipation of Season 4 of Stranger Things, the Sorting Hat has grouped your favorite characters from the magical universe of Hawkins, Indiana into their rightful Hogwarts houses. Of course, there are a lot of courageous, loyal Gryffindors in Stranger Things. There are also some brainy, curious Ravenclaws; some friendly, kind Hufflepuffs; and some ambitious, potentially-evil Slytherins. If some of these choices are controversial, it’s only because the characters are so good that it’s hard to place them in only one house!

RELATED: ‘Stranger Things’ Announces Season 4 Episode Titles in New Video

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Mike Wheeler – Gryffindor

Mike (Finn Wolfhard) is centrally concerned with doing what’s right and protecting his friends. Like fellow Gryffindors, Harry, McGonagall, and Dumbledore, Mike is a leader at heart, working hard to discover what the best choices are and then convincing others to go along with those choices. Mike would make a good politician or school headmaster someday.

Eleven – Ravenclaw

Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) may not be as outwardly intellectual as Dustin, but she has incredible mental abilities that far exceed those of other characters. She essentially has magical powers, but this is only because she underwent almost-academic training for how to channel the full potential of her mind to perform magic. Eleven is also a brilliant puzzle-solver, but she does not have the same language or social skills as her peers (especially at first), so she struggles to communicate the knowledge that she already has. Eleven’s counterpart from the Harry Potter universe is Luna Lovegood.


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Joyce Byers – Gryffindor

Joyce (Winona Ryder) is focused, above all else, on protecting her family, and she is brave enough to face any obstacle to rescue Will. She is even brave and loyal enough to continue pursuing her line of thinking – that Will is still alive and that she can talk to him through the lights/electricity – even though everyone else thinks she has gone insane. Joyce stands up not only to her enemies (Dr. Brenner, demogorgons, etc) but also to her friends and family (Jonathan, Hopper, Lonnie, etc). She does not give up until she gets everyone to listen to her and believe that Will is still out there and that something supernatural is going on.

Jim Hopper – Gryffindor

Even though Hopper (David Harbour) is the Hawkins Chief of Police, he is also willing to break rules in order to ultimately uphold justice (such as breaking into Hawkins Lab or punching the mayor to get answers). Just as the Gryffindors in Harry Potter refuse to obey the Death Eaters who work at Hogwarts or the Ministry of Magic, Hopper refuses to submit to the corrupt people from the government and Hawkins Lab who try to keep him in the dark about what truly happened to Will, Barb, Eleven, and other citizens of Hawkins. Part of being a Gryffindor is the ability to distinguish between what is legally right and what is morally right, even for a police officer like Hopper.


Dustin Henderson – Ravenclaw

Most of the kids on this show are smart, but Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) often takes the lead in terms of figuring out tough problems. For example, he notices all of the compasses are broken, suggesting there is a very strong magnetic pull, and he uses this to discover how to find the door to the Upside Down. This brainiac would thrive in Ravenclaw, where he would continue to take the lead at figuring out tough scientific puzzles.

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Lucas Sinclair – Hufflepuff

This might be a controversial choice, but the sorting hat says Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) belongs in Hufflepuff. Although Lucas is highly intelligent, brave, and loyal (characteristics he shares with his Gryffindor and Ravenclaw friends), Lucas is more cautious and less of a risk-taker than the others. He prefers to play it safe, advocating to tell Mike’s mom about Eleven rather than keep her a secret, and not trusting Eleven at all initially. Lucas values “the party” (his friends) and his family, and will fight to defend them but generally prefers to avoid conflict if possible.


Nancy Wheeler – Gryffindor

At first, Nancy (Natalia Dyer) seems to be too preoccupied with boys and alcohol to do anything productive in terms of saving Hawkins, but she proves herself a true Gryffindor when she steps in to figure out what happened to Barb, and to save her little brother’s friend. Once she separates from Steve, she is able to blossom into her true self, fighting to get to the truth behind the strange occurrences in Hawkins and hoping to write about them in the newspaper.

Jonathan Byers – Gryffindor

Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) is a true Gryffindor in the sense that, like Harry Potter, he will break almost any rule if he thinks it will ultimately help save the day. Jonathan constantly disobeys Joyce, Hopper, and other authority figures and takes matters into his own hands, which ultimately does help save the day a few times. Jonathan is fiercely loyal, and he will do anything, even face the demogorgon or venture into the Upside Down, to rescue his brother.


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Steve Harrington – Gryffindor

Steve (Joe Keery) starts out, in Mike’s words, as a “douchebag,” but he later becomes one of the best characters once he learns to prioritize being a good and happy person over being “cool.” Even though Nancy had just broken up with him, Steve steps in to help Nancy and Jonathan fight the demogorgon. He also becomes a good friend to the younger kids, protecting them several times from monsters and even being willing to sacrifice himself to save them. A jokester with a heart of gold, Steve’s counterparts in the Harry Potter universe are Fred and George Weasley.

Will Byers – Gryffindor

Will (Noah Schnapp) is a sweet, sensitive boy who gets kidnapped by a monster and taken to a dark, alternate dimension in the pilot episode. Some might place Will in Hufflepuff, but, like the Gryffindor Neville Longbottom, Will demonstrates unrivaled bravery despite being sensitive and getting bullied at school. In Season 1, Will is a victim and has to be saved, but in Seasons 2 and 3, Will takes on a more active role, sharing his knowledge about the Upside Down and the monsters with others in order to defeat these evils and save Hawkins.


Max Hargrove – Slytherin

Max (Sadie Sink) is a skateboarding, video game-playing badass from her first appearance on the show. Always trying to spice things up, Max loves breaking up and getting back together with Lucas; convincing El to spy on Mike and break up with Mike; and ridiculing Dustin. Max is not one of those evil Slytherins, though–she is just a ball of fire trying to have fun and take life to the next level.

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Billy Hargrove – Slytherin

Billy (Dacre Montgomery) was always a Slytherin (of the Lucius Malfoy type) even before he got possessed by the monster. However, once he is possessed by the monster, Billy slowly evolves into a Bellatrix Lestrange-type of Slytherin. He ultimately abandons the concern with public appearances that he used to have, and turns into a complete loose cannon obsessed with bloodlust.


Erica Sinclair – Slytherin

Erica (Priah Ferguson) is all about ambition and making money. A harsh critic of communism and lover of capitalism, she agrees to help Dustin, Steve, and Robin get to the secret Russian lair, but only if they promise her a lifetime supply of free ice cream from the store where Steve and Robin work. Erica is always thinking about how she can get ahead. She is highly intelligent, but resents the label of “nerd,” preferring instead to draw attention away from her intelligence by making snarky comments meant to roast her friends. Erica will probably grow up to be very, very rich.

Robin Buckley – Ravenclaw

Only a Ravenclaw could translate a secret Russian code into English (when she doesn’t even speak Russian), and then crack the code to figure out where the door to the Upside Down has been opened again. True, Robin (Maya Hawke) had the help of Steve and Dustin, but she did most of the real work.


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Bob Newby – Hufflepuff

Although Bob (Sean Astin) is a hero, this does not automatically make him a Gryffindor. And although he is somewhat of a tech genius, he is not a Ravenclaw. Bob is a Hufflepuff, driven by kindness and love. He is sweet, silly, loveable, non-threatening, and often not in on all the secrets. He sometimes allows Hopper to bully him. In true Hufflepuff fashion, Bob sacrifices himself to save Joyce and the others at the end of Season 2.

Dr. Brenner – Slytherin

Even though he is highly intelligent, Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine) uses his brain for evil, like Voldemort and other Death Eaters. True, Brenner is motivated by curiosity and he is doing his experiments in order to learn, but he commits heinous crimes in the name of research that a Ravenclaw would never commit. Dr. Brenner wants to learn more about the human mind at all costs–he will tell lies, commit murders, kidnap children, or allow children to die.


Tommy H and Carol – Slytherin

These two are the worst, which Steve Harrington thankfully realizes after a while. All they care about is being “cool,” and their favorite thing to do is insult others. They are mean to Jonathan the day after his brother disappears, and they are mean to Barbara even though she is amazing. Their counterparts in Harry Potter are Crabbe and Goyle.

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Barbara Holland – Hufflepuff

Barbara (Shannon Purser) has a heart of gold. Even though she is sheltered and kind of a party pooper, she tries her best to help her best friend Nancy by shielding her from boys and alcohol. However, Barb meets an untimely death because of her Hufflepuff qualities. After giving into peer pressure, Barb is still unable to open a beer properly to shotgun it. Instead, she cuts her hand with the knife, thereby luring the demogorgan to come attack her while she waits outside for Nancy to finish having sex with Steve. Some Hufflepuffs are just too good for this world.


Mr. Clarke – Ravenclaw

The science teacher who encourages his students to seize every opportunity for a “curiosity voyage,” Mr. Clarke (Randy Havens) is clearly a Ravenclaw. He even answers the phone in the middle of the night to explain to Dustin (for purely “hypothetical” purposes) how to build a sensory deprivation tank. Mr. Clarke would be the Head of Ravenclaw House.

Murray Bauman – Ravenclaw

A former journalist and a connoisseur of conspiracy theories, Murray Bauman (Brett Gelman) resembles Xenophilius Lovegood (Luna’s father). He is a quirky intellectual who is often brushed aside as “crazy” and, consequently, people don’t always believe Murray. However, Murray is right about almost everything, such as Hawkins Lab, Jonathan and Nancy, Hopper and Joyce, and evil Russians in Hawkins. He eventually learns that there are certain parts of the truth that the masses will never believe, so he has to work with Nancy and Jonathan to tell only certain parts of the story, to achieve the same ends of shutting down the dangerous experiments of Hawkins Lab.

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After Driving Again And More, Britney Spears Shares Her Latest Taste Of Post-Conservatorship Freedom

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After Driving Again And More, Britney Spears Shares Her Latest Taste Of Post-Conservatorship Freedom

They say it’s the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary, and that’s likely particularly true if you’ve been denied access to those things for an extended period of time. After Britney Spears was released from the conservatorship she’d been under, the singer has been reintroducing herself to some of life’s simple pleasures. Last summer Spears was super pumped about regaining the freedom to drive, and in January the “Toxic” singer documented drinking her first glass of wine in over a decade. The newlywed continued to celebrate the post-conservatorship life by sharing her first trip to a bar.

Fans of the former pop singer are accustomed to seeing Britney Spears dancing and twirling and modeling different outfits at her and Sam Asghari’s new home. However, the “Toxic” singer took her followers on an exciting field trip, in which she and her assistant patronized a local drinking establishment. She shared her trip — and a sarcastic remark — on Instagram:

(Image credit: Instagram)

As she and her assistant Victoria Asher apparently enjoyed a drink and an app, Britney Spears couldn’t help but throw a little shade at her family, remarking that she was “so so grateful” for not being allowed to have a cocktail for the 13 years after her father Jamie Spears took control of her life. In fact, the 40-year-old said in her post this is her first time to partake in such an adventure. In the video, she shared:

This is my first time at a bar. First time. I feel so fancy, and I feel so sophisticated.

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How ‘Yellowjackets’ Stars Survived Hollywood

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How ‘Yellowjackets’ Stars Survived Hollywood

Sure, they may have eaten a person back in the day. But there are some things the grown women of Yellowjackets just wouldn’t do. On this, the actresses who play them — Tawny Cypress, Juliette Lewis, Melanie Lynskey and Christina Ricci — agree, as they gather in a backyard in L.A.’s Topanga Canyon in late July, just a few weeks before they start filming the second season of their breakout show.

The Showtime survival thriller, created and executive produced by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, earned seven Emmy nominations, including outstanding drama series and acting nominations for Lynskey and Ricci. The Yellowjackets storyline alternates between 1996 and the present day as it follows members of a high school girls soccer team whose plane crashes and strands them for 19 months in the wilderness, where they resort to cannibalism to survive.

Part of the show’s nostalgic appeal relies on its casting of these actresses, three of whom audiences knew as young women for their slyly offbeat roles in films like The Addams Family (Ricci), Cape Fear (Lewis) and Heavenly Creatures (Lynskey), to play the crash survivors as adults. In this conversation with THR, Cypress, Lewis, Lynskey and Ricci disclose their ’90s regrets, share what it means when you call an actress “quirky” and reveal how survival bonds women — including in the trenches of Hollywood.

Who here knew each other before the show?

MELANIE LYNSKEY (Points to Christina Ricci.) We knew each other a little bit. I went to a Nick Cave concert by myself, and Christina came up and —

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CHRISTINA RICCI I was very excited to see you.

LYNSKEY So excited. We were having a lovely chat, and then she’s like, “Are you here by yourself?” She’s the coolest person of all time, and I was intimidated. I just felt embarrassed to say, “I’ve come to a concert by myself.” I was like 24 or something.

RICCI I was impressed because I couldn’t go anywhere by myself.

LYNSKEY I also went to see Clay Aiken by myself because nobody would come with me.

It’s surprising that none of you had worked together over the years.

JULIETTE LEWIS It’s wild when you’ve been around so long, and you sort of have a kindred connection to people. There’s certain actors you’re like, “Mmm, we’re not of the same tree,” and then there’s other actors you’re like, “Oh, yeah. We have some roots.”

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Juliette, Melanie and Christina, all three of your Wikipedia entries say some version of, “Often plays quirky or offbeat characters.” What do those words mean to you?

LEWIS Real people, specific and unpredictable.

LYNSKEY I remember I got cast in a movie when I was like 21, and the description of the character before I auditioned was “Blah, blah, blah, the beautiful girl who sits next to him in school.” Then, at the table read, it had been changed to “Blah, blah, blah, cute and quirky.” I was like, “You don’t need to change it. Just keep it …” They’re like, “We better change this description or people will be like, wrong actress.” So, sometimes it feels … I don’t know. I never liked that word, “quirky.”

RICCI When you say that all of us had this description, that to me speaks to a past time, when, if you weren’t the leading-lady ingenue then you were quirky and offbeat. All right, so there’s two groups for actresses? In a way, I’m fine with being in the category I’m in because what it means to me is that I have made an effort in my career to do things that I feel like I haven’t seen before. So, in some ways, I like it. In other ways, I’m like, “Ugh.” It’s a little dismissive. A little cute and dismissive.

LEWIS We come from the ’90s where, when I had blond hair, I was the pretty airhead, and then I dyed my hair dark, and I was the wisecracking, sarcastic girl. But yeah, I think it’s really neat that we’ve all carved this path of range and specificity.

Isn’t another term for that “character actor”?

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RICCI But “character actress” used to be something they used to describe an ugly woman.

TAWNY CYPRESS Or Abe Vigoda.

RICCI Back in the late ’90s, my agents were always like, “We have to be so careful you don’t become a character actress. If we’re not careful, you’re going to end up just like Jennifer Jason Leigh.” I was like, “I like her.” They were so afraid of me not being a leading lady, of me not being sexually attractive to people. It was really the last thing I ever wanted, was for anyone to be attracted to me.

LEWIS My dad was a character actor. So to me, it was something that was super noble. It was a world of adventure and not limiting. I rebelled against the system, the PR system of being in some bizarre idea of beauty. I really revolted against that, for better or for worse. Crying in a bathroom at a photo shoot, like, “I won’t come out.” They want these doe-eyed looks. That’s for sure what I didn’t do in pictures, so I always looked slightly insane, which I prefer over, like, “Do you want to fuck me?”

Tawny, what was your sense of what the expectations were for you when you were starting out?

CYPRESS I’ve had a different row to hoe. I’ve spent my whole career doing shitty roles of the sassy one on the side. Honestly, growing up as an actor, I wanted to be an ingenue.

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LEWIS Isn’t that funny? And I wanted to be sassy and opinionated.

CYPRESS I couldn’t be an ingenue. I just couldn’t. It’s just not in me, you know? I was never presented with those roles, ever, and I was like, “Oh, OK. That’s not who I am.” I sort of, growing older, have embraced my Jersey side, and I am who I am, and this is what you get.

LYNSKEY I started calling myself a character actor in interviews when I was really young because I think it was reclaiming the term or something. I think I just was like, “That’s what I am.” My agents had all that kind of intensity around it, too. I remember when I did Coyote Ugly

RICCI Oh my God, you got a piece in that? I went up for that, and I didn’t get it.

CYPRESS I did too.

LYNSKEY I played the best friend from Jersey. But the scrutiny that was on Piper [Perabo], who’s one of the coolest, smartest women, just the way people were talking about her body, talking about her appearance, focusing on what she was eating. All the girls had this regimen they had to go on. It was ridiculous. I was already starving myself and as thin as I could possibly be for this body, and I was still a [size] four. That was already people putting a lot of Spanx on me in wardrobe fittings and being very disappointed when they saw me, the costume designer being like, “Nobody told me there would be girls like you.” Really intense feedback about my physicality, my body, people doing my makeup and being like, “I’m just going to help you out by giving you a bit more of a jawline and stuff.” Just the feedback was constantly like, “You’re not beautiful. You’re not beautiful.” In your early 20s, so much of it is about beauty, and how people respond to you, and do people want to fuck you? Do people think you’re their best friend? Even the best friend thing, I started to be like, “I don’t want to do that too many times.”

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Did you have to unlearn anything that people tried to teach you when you were starting out?

LEWIS I had developed such a survival mechanism to protect my autonomy, sort of, “You don’t own me. You don’t tell me my value. Only I do.” I was extremely self-critical — it still happens — of my work. It’s almost like a defense mechanism that no one could talk shit about me more than I can. There’s all these things that are wrapped up in how to survive a system. That’s what I’m unlearning today — to be softer. This is a really remarkable industry to be a part of. I feel honored to be a part of it and what it gave me, but I do still hold on to what it took from me in my youth.

Given what you all experienced coming into the industry, do you feel at all protective of the younger actresses who play the younger versions of your characters?

LYNSKEY (Begins to cry.) So much. I feel very protective. At the beginning of production, I sent them all an email, and I just was like, “Whatever you need, if you need a voice, if you need someone to go to the producers for you, whatever you need,” and they were kind of like, “Cool. Thanks.” They’re fine.

CYPRESS Totally fine. Jas [Jasmin Savoy Brown] was a boss on set. She’s like, “This is how we’re doing my hair. This is what we’re doing.”

RICCI They’re very much of a different generation.

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CYPRESS I am protective of Jas in the fact that she is so sexually positive, which I love. She has taught me so much, just knowing her as a person. But I’m like a mama bear to her, or a big sister. I’m like, “What are you putting online right now?” She’s like, “Whatever. Whatever. This is life, man. I love myself.” I’m protective, but I’m also in awe of her, you know?

LEWIS But there is a thing I always want to say to young people: Cultivate other interests deeply so that you’re not getting all your life’s blood from this industry, or your self-worth.

Is there anything you miss about the ’90s?

LYNSKEY I have a lot of love letters from the ’90s.

RICCI Someone used to fax me love letters when he was on tour. I did not save them. I throw everything out. I had a specific thing when I was a child, that we would be punished by the things that we loved being destroyed. My husband, who is a much healthier individual, has gone back and found all my old magazine covers on Etsy because he thinks it’s horrible that I never saved them. As a child, I learned that this is going to be taken from me, so why save it anyway?

LYNSKEY That’s heartbreaking. Well, I saved everything because I’m basically an emotional hoarder. I have this literal suitcase, an old-fashioned suitcase.

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RICCI This is very dark, but I would just like to go back to that age and do it over again and not make so many fucking mistakes. Honestly, I regret so much.

CYPRESS Me too. One thousand percent.

LEWIS Me too.

RICCI I’d like to go back to 1996 and be like, “All right … we had a practice run. It went OK, but it wasn’t really as great as we wanted it to be. We’re going to do this again.” People who are like, “I have no regrets.” What fucking magic life did you live?

LEWIS Where they go, “I don’t regret anything because that led up to this moment.” Really? The thing that could’ve put my dad in an early grave, I fucking regret it. Yes. I was very scary as a young teenage person.

CYPRESS Yeah. I hurt a lot of people growing up, and I wish that I didn’t. I was going through my memory box. It was my great-great-grandmother’s she brought over from Hungary. It’s huge, and it’s filled to the brim with everything from my life. I came across a note from high school. It was my first gay friend, and it broke my heart because he was like, “I want to thank you for not talking to me anymore and just cutting me off the way that you did. It made it hurt less.” I literally was crying, and I had to call him and be like, “I just came across this note, and I’m so sorry that I was that person to you.” When I think back, I think how wonderful our relationship was, but I was a shit, you know? I would definitely do so many things differently.

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LEWIS I’ve had those moments where I turned into … Because I’ve been bullied, but when I was 11 and got in a fight with a girl, I was mean [the same way] how a girl was mean to me. I was really vicious.

LYNSKEY I think people without regrets are narcissists. I think they’re lying to themselves.

RICCI Denial is the only way to get up that river.

What did you all feel when you learned that Roe v. Wade was overturned?

RICCI It’s really horrible to be told so plainly what your value is.

LEWIS I wish the two factions can talk, like, “Hey, what do you do with a bad situation, poverty and drug addiction, and rape?” You have to have an option that is salvageable or is sustainable for the survival of a person, a woman who’s living.

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CYPRESS I don’t really give a shit what your reason to have an abortion is. It’s your fucking body. I don’t really fucking care. You don’t want to be a mom, right? That’s your fucking decision. Look, we can put morals on it and say, “Well, only when you’re raped, or only if it’s …” It’s like no, dude. It’s either in or out. We’re either telling women what to do with their bodies or we let them have their own choice. I am of the mind, choice. I’m not going to judge you for making that decision.

LYNSKEY And there seems to be this general lack of compassion and empathy that’s just growing and growing. There’s so much hatred, and people are unable to look at another person’s life and go, “Oh, you know, that’s an untenable situation,” or even, “That’s a difficult situation.” There’s no grace given to anybody else. There’s no empathy. You don’t get to make decisions for somebody else. You don’t know what’s right for them.

Is there a place for TV and film in that conversation?

CYPRESS I mean, that’s what TV and film do. That’s what art is. On Yellowjackets, let’s talk about Shauna’s baby in the woods, you know? Yeah. I think we have a lot of room to speak on this subject, and I hope we do.

Did anybody have their kids on set for season one?

LYNSKEY (Points to Ricci.) We did.

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RICCI And I was pregnant. I didn’t tell anyone but these ladies that I was pregnant for six months. When we started, I was six weeks pregnant. It was difficult. There were so many times where I was like, “Ooh, when they find out I’m pregnant, and they made me sit in this smoky room all day. When they realize that they made me stand for eight hours, and I’m pregnant, and I have this horrible sciatica, and it’s 100 degrees, oh, they’re going to feel so bad.” They didn’t feel bad at all. But anyway, it was fine. In fact, it would’ve been helpful if I was playing a more emotional character because I can give a real good performance when I’m pregnant, real emo.

How would you finish the sentence, “Yellowjackets is really about …”?

CYPRESS Women. PTSD.

LYNSKEY Trauma.

CYPRESS Friendship.

RICCI Haunting, the way trauma haunts you. The way you can never escape. The way it twists people in different ways.

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LEWIS Aberrant survival tactics.

We know that these characters have done a bunch of aberrant things, as you say, including cannibalism. But do you have in your mind an idea that, “OK, she may have eaten another human being, but she would never do this“?

RICCI I know when they confront me because I’m like, “OK, she wouldn’t do that.” Misty wouldn’t drink that drink. Originally, in the script, she was drinking a Brandy Alexander, and I said, “No, Misty would drink a chocolate martini.” I have rules and stuff for her in my head, and they do conflict with the writers sometimes. I don’t think she actually is interested in men, at all. I think she does it because she’s bored, or because she thinks that’s what she’s supposed to do. Then, she’s also realized that she can have a lot of fun trying to trick them into having sex with her when they don’t want to. It’s like men will kind of know that you don’t want to have sex with them, but if they can get you to have sex with them, they won.

LEWIS It’s a power thing.

RICCI Misty’s way of doing it is through this really horrible manipulation, making him feel guilty and having sex with her while feeling guilty, which would be a terrible experience.

When you have a different perspective on your character than the writers, what do you do?

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RICCI That’s part of the thing with TV that I’ve learned now, being involved in a production but not being one of the EPs, so you aren’t a part of creating what people do. “OK, they wrote this scene. I have to play this scene. If she was in this situation, how the fuck would she be in this situation, and why would she be?” Then, you don’t have to tell other people what you come up with. They can find out about it later when you do press.

Does anybody else have a line in their mind that their character wouldn’t cross?

LYNSKEY I had one. There was something written into a script where I was going on a date with my lover, and they had me going into my daughter’s bedroom and taking her underwear, which was just not practical because I wouldn’t fit it. She’s little. But also, ew. I think there was something, apparently, somewhere, people liked the thing in the pilot where I’m masturbating in my daughter’s bedroom. I was like, “Can that just be an isolated incident? I don’t want it to be a theme.” So I just was like, “I don’t want to do that.” They were great about it.

LEWIS It comes, I think, with experience and respect, that they appreciate if you have a point of view. I have an “anything goes” stamp on me, which they all know. But I have strong ideas, especially about my trajectory in midlife. I’ve looked at Natural Born Killers recently, and I’m like, “Jesus.” Thank goodness I had a partner like Woody Harrelson, but it is so sexual. No one forced me into that. I was a young nihilist who didn’t give a fuck, and I felt comfortable with Woody, and I liked the material. But nowadays, I’m very particular. So, they had written a sex scene, and I was like, “I don’t know. I don’t know that she even gets off. I don’t know that she even can have orgasms.” That’s how deep I went. So it was more like, is she doing something to get something? At the end of the day, I just didn’t even think she fucks, sorry to be so graphic, at this juncture that you saw in season one. I think she might’ve had relationships with all of them in the wilderness. I don’t know if they’re going to write it, but that’s what I’d like to think of Natalie.

LYNSKEY That’s what I think too.

RICCI What? I never thought of that. Who would they be making out with? I guess each other.

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The finale hints that there may be additional Yellowjackets who survived into adulthood. Have actors been cast for those roles?

LEWIS Wait, Melanie, didn’t you say that on our chain, that someone we like is cast to be … (At this point there is meaningful eye contact among the four women.)

RICCI We don’t know for sure. That’s what we’ve heard was close to happening.

LYNSKEY We don’t know anything.

On season one, you were making this show under the radar. Now there’s so much fan speculation. Does that change the way you approach the work?

RICCI There’s more pressure going into season two.

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CYPRESS Have you guys also had that feeling of like, “Can I do this? Is it going to be good, the second season? Am I going to fuck this character up?”

LYNSKEY I have those fears.

RICCI Me too, but because TV is so fast, and you have so little time with the information, the process of talking about the show afterward helps you to evolve your take on your character. To understand things that were intended with the character that maybe weren’t clear originally because you get to hear the EPs talk about it. I’m going to make changes in the next season based on what I have come to realize through all this talking.

Like what?

RICCI Well, that’s a secret.

How much do you want to know about the path that your character is on?

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CYPRESS Fuck, I want to know everything. I sit there, and when I think about the show, I think, “What the fuck are they going to do with this character?” There’s so many different parts to her right now. The dog thing. She’s now a senator. There may be an old love coming back, you know? I’m like, “How are they going to do this?” I just want to know.

LYNSKEY Now you’re a full-time dog killer.

RICCI I didn’t even know that you were supposed to be the one that killed the dog.

CYPRESS What?

RICCI I thought, “Oh, well maybe somebody broke in.”

LYNSKEY That could still be, right?

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CYPRESS Wait, give me more to think about.

So you don’t go to the writers and say, “To be clear, did I kill the dog?”

CYPRESS Oh, we do. They just say, “Mmm.”

RICCI “We don’t know.”

CYPRESS But they do know.

RICCI I don’t think they’re trying to control us with no information or anything. Sometimes, they don’t want to commit to something that hasn’t been necessarily set in stone. I do find it frustrating to not know, and we’re never able to know fully. I have decided to learn how to function with knowing nothing.

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Interview edited for length and clarity.

This story first appeared in the Aug. 3 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.

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James Gunn Addresses Peacemaker Future Amid Batgirl Cancelation

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James Gunn Addresses Peacemaker Future Amid Batgirl Cancelation

Shockwaves from Warner Bros.’s cancelation of Batgirl have had many fans questioning the possibility of other DC-connected projects following suit. Amid outcries from fans of Batgirl, Michael Keaton, Brendan Fraser, and even Snyderverse fans who are always eager to picket Warner Bros., Peacemaker fans started asking James Gunn whether there was any possibility that his DC work was going to suffer amid the company’s cost-cutting exercise. Ironically, considering the history that led James Gunn to work with DCEU characters, it seems that the director and his shows are the only ones who are “safe.”

What seems like a lifetime ago, James Gunn was all set to start work on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 for Disney and Marvel Studios when some old Twitter posts led to him being unceremoniously sacked. By the time Disney backtracked on their firing, Gunn was already committed to directing The Suicide Squad for Warner Bros., which is why Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has taken so long to arrive. Now, during all the chaos at Warner Bros., it appears that Gunn is not worried at all about the second season of Peacemaker getting the ax. When asked if the show was safe, Gunn simply replied:

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“Yes, guys, calm down.”

That is a relief for fans of the small sub-universe Gunn is building inside the DCEU, which along with The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker, is set to include at least another unannounced project and be linked to the Amanda Waller series that is in development. At least that side of the franchise doesn’t appear to be going anywhere.


Related: Peacemaker: Will More Suicide Squad Members Appear in Season 2?

Is Warner Bros. Still Planning on Rebooting The DCEU?

There have been rumors of a “soft-reboot” coming to the DCEU for a long time, and while it seems at times like Warner Bros. is heading in that direction, they have constantly denied any such intention. During San Diego Comic-Con, the entire focus of the Warner Bros. live-action DC panel was on Black Adam and Shazam! Fury of the Gods. Both of these movies have their small links to the wider DCEU, and once again, Warner Bros. seemed to be causing confusion by including a Justice League montage within the Shazam sequel while at the same time professing that they are not revisiting that particular DCEU set up in any way.

One thing clear from Dwayne Johnson’s appearance at SDCC is that he believes that Black Adam is setting the tone for a new DCEU, and based on everything else that is happening, he could be right. While there is no way of telling exactly where the franchise will be heading beyond The Flash in 2023, with new additional entries like Wonder Woman 3 constantly being stuck in limbo, it has been made clear that some big changes are being made in regards to the DCEU and fans will be hoping that those changes bring some kind of consistency to the franchise before it ends up crashing down around itself.

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