Lauren Ambrose is joining Yellowjackets as one of the adult survivors
Ambrose previously starred on Six Feet Under and Apple TV Plus's Servant
[Note: Due to the nature of how casting on Yellowjackets works, this story contains some spoilers for the show’s second season.]
Yellowjackets continues its trend of pairing its (excellent) teen cast with some (also excellent) veteran ringers to play their adult counterparts. To wit: Today, THR announced that Six Feet Under and Servant star Lauren Ambrose has joined the cast of the Showtime series for its second season.
Specifically—and here’s your last chance to tap out if you don’t want to get confirmation that another member of the titular soccer team survived their wilderness ordeal, and managed to make it to adulthood—Ambrose will be playing Van, the team’s goalie, who gets wrapped up in some of the more mystical/cultish parts of the group’s survival struggles after being stranded in the wilderness when their plane goes down.
It’s solid casting, both in so far as Ambrose is obviously a great actor who’s been a part of some of the most exciting TV dramas of the last few decades and because she looks quite a bit like Liv Hewson, who plays Van during the part of the show’s timeline set immediately after the crash. Ambrose’s casting is the first major confirmation that Van is still alive and kicking as an adult—and, we can only assume, on some sort of emotional collision course with her old flame Taissa (whose adult actor, Tawny Cypress, has expressed her interest in seeing the two characters reconnect).
In addition to the announcement of Ambrose’s casting, Showtime also announced that Hewson was being bumped up to the show’s main cast, after being billed as a recurring role in the first season. Series co-creator Ashley Lyle also stated that we’re likely to meet the adult version of Courtney Eaton’s character Lottie in the upcoming season, which is set to begin production on August 30.