As the role of present-day Lottie demands, Simone Kessell made a huge impression on Yellowjackets in her debut season.

Season 1 introduced the 1996 version of the character played by Courtney Eaton, but viewers were left wondering whether Lottie would make it through the wilderness ordeal alive until Kessell’s casting was announced between seasons. Ultimately, present-day Lottie becomes a significant driving force of the show. She’s the one who encouraged the Yellowjackets to start listening to the wilderness and respect its voice in the past, and now she’s pursuing similar ambitions but on a larger scale via her very own wellness compound.
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At the start of Season 2, Lottie isn’t preaching about the power of the wilderness but rather, offering activities and sermons that encourage “turning suffering into strength so we can live as our best selves.” Lottie starts the season sound and steady with confidence and authority, but as more surviving Yellowjackets arrive at the compound, the more Lottie starts to lose herself to the trauma she was subjected to in the wilderness.

With Yellowjackets in the spotlight courtesy of a significant amount of well-deserved Emmy season hype, Kessell took the time to join me for a Collider Ladies Night conversation to recap her journey playing Lottie thus far, including her heartbreaking downward spiral.

Image via Showtime

Turns out, when Kessell first accepted the role, she had no idea how heavily Lottie’s mental health would define the character’s trajectory. She explained:

“I didn’t know that the arc of her mental health would be what it was. I came into Lottie, really, in the power of being this beautiful, gracious, social, spiritual healer, and then where she ends up is just huge. I think around Episode maybe 5 or 6 I started to understand that decline, so to speak, or the fact that she really falls apart. And even watching it now I’m kind of stunned too because when you’re in it, you’re so in it. And I have to say that last episode, it broke my heart. It broke my heart obviously for the Natalie moment, but it broke my heart to see Lottie so traumatized and broken. She’s in a state. She’s in an absolute state. And so when I watched that I was kind of really taken with where I went. It just makes me so much more compassionate and understanding for people who are going through mental health, and being true to that. And watching it back, I don’t recognize myself in that at all.”

The “not knowing” while making Yellowjackets didn’t stop there. One of the show’s many standout components is the highly intriguing mystery unfolding, and the unanswered questions that come with it. Given the actors only have access to the material that unfolds in Season 2, they share many of the same burning questions viewers have. While one might not want to fill in the blanks themselves in fear future seasons will deem that information inaccurate, sometimes such backstory work is necessary. Kessell offered up one such example:

“I had no background on where Lottie had been and what had happened and why she suddenly has this glorious cult following and she lives in this community that is rich with living off the land and everything, so I sort of had to join my own dots in my head, and for a lot of those scenes as well. She’s giving a lot. There were a few scenes cut of all her sermons, I’m gonna call them, which is a shame. But I guess you get it, you know? She’s delivering love and peace and wants everyone to heal through past trauma. I sort of had to fill in the dots of who her gurus were, where her teachings were from. I did my homework on that, and I remember when I was very young, I was obsessed with Louise Hay. I don’t know if you would know who she is. She was all affirmations and visualizing. You know, I love and approve of myself; she’s that. And so I went back and I found my Louise Hay books and I really sort of dug into those again, and that’s a lovely place to be in, and just finding why she cares so much.”

Image via Showtime

One burning question Kessell absolutely needed to be answered by the showrunners? She needed clarity on Lottie’s intentions. She explained:

“That was one of my questions to the showrunners; does she genuinely want to help people? And they were like, ‘Absolutely, she does.’ So with that little note, I could then create what you then saw because I came from truth then, but if I thought she was just kind of doing it for money as a bit of a side hustle, then I’d be like, ‘Hm.’ But no, she’s true. She’s gold.”

Looking for more from Kessell on her experience bringing present-day Lottie to screen in Yellowjackets Season 2? There’s loads more from where this came from! Be sure to check out her episode of Collider Ladies Night at the top of this article or listen to the full 44-minute interview uncut in podcast form below to hear more about Lottie’s shifting headspace, how she feels about what happened to Travis (Andres Soto), if she thinks she’s the first true Antler Queen, and loads more!