Hilary Swank on Her Bloody, Mysterious, and “Powerful” ‘Yellowjackets’ Debut

Hilary Swank was asked to join the cast of Yellowjackets just two weeks before she would need to fly to Vancouver and start filming. By the time her first episode wrapped, she needed to be pinned down on the ground, bloody, with costar Melanie Lynskey taking a literal bite out of her arm, then dangling the torn skin in her face. Quite a way to jump into a show. With so little time to process, was Swank nervous or hesitant? “No,” she says with a wide grin. “I was all in.”

The two-time Oscar winner knew what she was getting into—even if it would be a lot for her very first project since giving birth to her twins in 2023. Paramount+ with Showtime’s Yellowjackets has taken its exploration of female rage and trauma to grisly extremes in its hit third season, and Swank’s arrival as Melissa—one of the teen Yellowjacket team members presumed dead in the later adulthood timeline—further ratchets up the gory tension. She’s caught living a lie after Shauna (Lynskey), her onetime girlfriend, realizes that Melissa has been secretly communicating with her. Shauna breaks into Melissa’s home, where she finds Melissa hiding her true identity from her wife—the daughter of Hannah, the frog scientist who got stuck with the girls in the wilderness and, seemingly, did not make it out alive.

The confrontation between Shauna and Melissa is confused, tentative, and a little melancholy. But there’s so much unsaid between these women—and much yet to be revealed about who might be behind their old friend Lottie’s murder, among many other things. Before long, they’re engaged in an out-and-out brawl. For Swank, there was no other way to get her Yellowjackets start.

Vanity Fair: They really threw you in, Hilary.

Hilary Swank: Yeah, they don’t mess around over there. [Laughs]

When they pitched you to come on the show, what did they say? What was most exciting to you?

Well, they did say, “As we move forward, we don’t have a complete outline of season four, but you’d be playing Melissa.” They shared with me the background for young Melissa. It’s such an interesting show for many reasons, but one is that they can really start creating anything—they can take one of those soccer players that was younger and make them into a bigger plot line. And it’s really genius, so that they never run out of ideas. That was fascinating, talking about the psychological side of when you go through something so traumatic at a young age, how that affects the rest of your life and your brain and your makeup. That never really leaves you even when you think that maybe it has.

Had you watched the show before? Were you a fan?

I had watched the pilot when it first came out, but I will admit that I’m not super good with scary. And there were parts of it that were a little too scary for me to watch. But when you get to be in it, you see the underpinnings of what makes something scary—which makes it less scary when you’re acting it. Then when you see it later, you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe how they cut that all together.” This was definitely different from my norm, and I loved that. A lot of the stuff that I do is at that edge of what is fiction and what is nonfiction—real-life stories. We say often that life is stranger than fiction: “You’d never believe that that happened.” This is the duality of that. You’re like, “Whoa, this could actually happen.”

How did you find working with Melanie, particularly on that very violent scene at the episode’s end?

We’d never met. I’m a fan of her work, and I think she’s really funny and unique. You can see some people doing something a certain way, and then she brings this other way and it’s such an interesting choice. We had a lot of dialogue and a lot of back and forth, and it was really fun to get in that sandbox and play with her like that. It was like, “Hello, hi, nice to meet you. Let’s go!” It was almost felt like we were doing theater, because it was this fun cat and mouse. It was really invigorating, especially just stepping back into working after having my babies.

This is quite a project to jump back into after all that.

My babies are still the age where blood and all of that doesn’t scare them. So if there’s any part of me that ever really gets messy, I can still FaceTime them.

Let’s talk about the blood. That must have been quite a scene to play at the end there.

Think about it: Would you ever think that someone would take a chunk out of your arm like that? I signed on before I even read anything. That’s just the way it is. They didn’t even have that written yet. They gave me a general idea of who my character was and what we were going to be exploring, and I already knew it was good writing. I already knew I wanted to be a part of it, so I didn’t need to see the actual details. But then you see, “So then she dangles that piece of my arm in my face.”

Usually you don’t have action and good scenes together. It’s one or the other. It’s an action project and not a lot of interesting dialogue. But who do you believe? Who did what? That is so fun to play. And then you add the elements: I love being physical, I love using my body. I love doing those types of scenes. I had the best of both worlds.

So how did you guys block it out? I mean, it’s pretty intense.

The stunt coordinator there is like, “When you pull someone’s hair, this is how you do it, and you don’t want to hurt someone’s neck.” They talk you through it all. Melanie was like, “Yeah, I just want to make sure no one gets hurt.” Then they place that blood in your mouth. You just sit there and you open your mouth and they put it all in your mouth, and you’re waiting for them to say action, and then you start acting so that the blood comes. That’s what I mean about the man behind the curtain. You see the inner workings of it, and then when you watch it, it’s so crazy how it comes together.

Much of this show is about rage, and that eventually comes out in Melissa. But for much of the episode we’re trying to figure her out. What did you make of her?

This is a woman who has worked at healing and is trying to move on with her life, albeit in a very messed-up way with who she went on to marry. But it just goes to show that, psychologically, we make the strangest choices. To try and love somebody the way that they know that someone would’ve wanted them to be loved, but not even being able to say that, not acknowledging that consciously. It’s a very deep, subconscious thing to be living that lie. That’s what happens when people start making things up that becomes their truth. It’s so deep: Where does it stem from and why does that happen? Where do we find safety?

My character at one point even says, “I go to church now and it’s like I have a normal life. I actually have a normal life.” People who have had so much trauma, that’s what they want: a feeling of normalcy. And then all of a sudden these people come back into your life and throw everything catawampus, and you’re remembering things that you didn’t even think were in your head anymore. What does that do? Where does that take you? What does that bring up for you? In trauma-filled experiences, all of that comes rushing back. That’s the beauty of getting into this psychological stuff.

If I have it right, the last time you came onto a show deep into its run was Beverly Hills 90210, so it’s been awhile. What’s it like to be a kind of disrupter on a hit show?

When I came onto 90210, it was in its eighth or ninth season, and I don’t think most people were even watching it anymore. [Laughs] Luke Perry was long gone. It was dwindling down, but I was excited. I was always excited about being a working actor. But it’s very different, you’re right, because you’re not long for the ride with something from the very beginning. With Yellowjackets, they’re all learning what’s unfolding as I am. That’s the nature of doing this type of work. No one really knows what’s happening until they read their episode. And then you read that episode and you go, “Oh, okay!”

It keeps you on your toes. I’m so methodical about my preparation in film: “This moment leads to this moment, and what happens here that will connect to act three.” You don’t have that ability in TV. You have to do a lot more of, “Oh, okay, now that I know that I do that, I have to make sure that I plant that seed as best I can right here, so that it leads up to that.” I have to have that connection. So you’re doing a lot more as you go, which is a new skill.

Is this the kind of project you’d want to be a part of for longer than a few episodes?

Yeah, I could see doing some more. I don’t know how long, because I do want to continue to do film—and when you’re on something that goes on and on, it limits you because of the amount of time it takes to actually film it. I don’t want to be working all year long because now I have my babies, and so I want to be able to be present and with them. But I enjoyed it definitely enough that I would be open to doing more. I really enjoyed the process a lot.

Did it feel unique, joining such a large, established cast of women?

It’s definitely more of a female-driven project, that’s a good point. I don’t think I have had that before. I mean, there’s definitely been a lot of females on other projects that I’ve done, but it’s peppered in with a lot of male cisgender people. It’s also exciting having a lot more content out there. I think we’re seeing more—not just female, but more genders across the board being depicted in a lot of different stories, and different races. We’re finally seeing the more colorful world that we actually live in. We’re seeing a lot of different writers coming in with different perspectives rather than just the very patriarchal, white world that was painted for everybody. Stepping into working with all of these women, as you pointed out, it’s just rich. It’s nice. It feels powerful.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.