Sophie Nelisse spills on 'Yellowjackets' cast's startling tradition

Sophie Nelisse, known for her role as teen Shauna on Yellowjackets, revealed how the cast honours characters who are killed off the show.

Speaking to PEOPLE at the Yellowjackets season 3 premiere in Los Angeles, the 24-year-old actress shared that the cast holds “death parties” as a “beautiful way” to pay homage to the dead characters.

She articulated, “Honestly, we find out when we get the script. We usually find out maybe a week before, and then we all get really sad. But what we love to do is we throw a death party in their honor.”

Nelisse went on to explain how she relaxes after filming emotional scenes in a show with lots of trauma and deaths.

The Close star quipped, “What’s really helpful is that we get to have a really long drive back home, and Courtney [Eaton] and I—who’s my best friend, who plays Lottie, and also we live together—we drive together to and from set.”

“So she has been my rock and the person that just helps me decompress and will just lay on the couch and do nothing, but just the silence and her presence calm me so well," she shared.

"Our weekends, we’d always think we’d be out exploring, but we’re usually pretty dead, and we just want peace and quiet and a lot of meditation and a hot sauna,” Nelisse stated.

At the season 3 premiere, Sophie Thatcher, who plays young Natalie, also talked about the death of her older self, played by Juliette Lewis.

“It was really sad, and I love Juliette so much, and I love my character, Natalie. I could cry. I cry about her all the time. It was sad, but I think she lives on in a lot of ways,” she explained.

Notably, Lewis’ character died at the end of the present-day timeline in season 2 and in her last moments, she talks with her younger self about her life and death.

Shedding light on this, Thatcher said, “I wasn't expecting it, but it had a weird impact on me, where it felt like a part of me was missing, again, because I grew up with this show, and it was such a formative age for me.”

Before concluding, it is essential to note that Yellowjackets season 3 debuted with two episodes on February 14, 2025, on Paramount+.

However, new episodes come out every Friday at 12 A.M. ET on the same streaming platform.