Yellowjackets Star Juliette Lewis on Bringing Her Punk-Rock, Fan-Favorite Character to Life—And What to Expect for the Show’s Season Finale

In episode eight of Showtime thriller Yellowjackets, Juliette Lewis, who plays the adult version of resident rebel Natalie, is spinning out of control.

Inside a shabby motel room, as Mazzy Star’s ’90s anthem “Fade Into You” plays, Lewis, wielding dark turquoise eyeliner and a handheld mirror, is slashing on exaggerated, punk cat eyes in between swigs from a Jack Daniels bottle, distraught over the death of an old flame. Later on in the episode, in a fit of heightened rage and grief, she applies a Mommie Dearest–inspired face mask and proceeds to tear apart her motel room. There’s a haunting beauty to it all—and that is all Lewis.

“I’m always trying to turn something on its head or do something I’ve never seen before—and I just pictured her wearing a white cold-cream mask while trashing the hotel room to make it look like kabuki opera theater,” explains the 48-year-old actor and singer of pitching the idea to Yellowjackets showrunners Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson. “They were down with the idea, and thank God because some people get scared of my ideas. They don’t trust it,” she laughs. “I’m like, ‘No, no, this is gonna be good, guys.’”

Needless to say, welcoming the whims of Lewis has paid dividends for the creators of Yellowjackets, which tells the story of a high school girls’ soccer team that survives a plane crash in the wilderness, oscillating between 1996, the year of the crash, and present day, when the middle-aged survivors are being haunted by the trauma of their past. The thriller—a modern, all-female answer to Lord of the Flies—has captivated audiences and ignited conspiracy theories at a dizzying speed.

As part of the older, present-time cast, Lewis stars alongside fellow Hollywood veterans Christina Ricci, Melanie Lynskey, and Tawny Cypress. Of the quartet of characters, Lewis’s fierce, strong-willed Natalie—a recovering addict and con artist with “toxic bravado,” as Lewis puts it—has the most distinctive style. A dyed-in-the-wool punk rocker, she mixes modern designer pieces (many of which are from Lewis’s own wardrobe) with the sartorial relics of young Natalie, played by Sophie Thatcher. “Every single thing she wears is an expression of her mental state,” explains Lewis. “It’s her façade.” The cherry on top of her insurgent armor is her choppy, artfully disheveled brunette bob and signature sooty eyes inspired by the likes of iconic rockers Nina Hagen and Siouxsie Sioux. In collaboration with costume designer Marie Schley, makeup artist Patricia Murray, and hair department head Marie Larkin, Lewis had a heavy hand in conceptualizing Natalie’s visual story, one that’s inextricably linked to the essence and evolution of her complex character.

In conversation with Vogue, Lewis discusses bringing her idiosyncratic vision of Natalie to life, the fanfare around Yellowjackets, and what to expect from the holy-shit-provoking season finale.

Vogue: What attracted you to Yellowjackets?

Juliette Lewis: The pilot script was one of the best scripts I’d ever read in I can’t even remember how long. It was so riveting and new. It was something I hadn’t seen before. It was so intriguing, and all the characters were so defined. Melanie Lynskey was involved, and then they mentioned Christina Ricci. And so that got me really excited. The brilliant, beautiful, enigmatic Tawny Cypress was not attached yet. I had just heard those names, and I was like, ‘Yes, that’s a good cast!’ All four of us together. We just complete each other.

Talk me through the evolution of bringing the character of Natalie to life. How did you collaborate with the wardrobe, hair, and makeup teams?

With Natalie, it’s so interesting to play someone who is devolving or imploding. More than any character in the show or any character I’ve ever played, every single thing she wears is an expression of her mental state. It’s her façade. When she’s going to grift someone, when she goes to see her sponsor, she puts on her bougie clothes. Our costume designer Marie Schley is brilliant and talented, and she helped with all the little details for my character, living out of suitcases and being very high-low. When you have a genius wardrobe stylist, they’ll complete your thoughts and put things together. It’s an extension of your creativity.

The show creators, Ashley and Bart, would write certain details in the script: At the rehab, for example, she’s dressed in cashmere loungewear. But mostly I just ran with it. And once Ashley gave me the instruction of “she lives out of suitcases,” that was so key because a person who lives out of suitcases does not have a closet. They might have stuff in storage. And then she is kind of a grifter, which you don’t really see in the season, but she’s a survivalist. She comes into money, she’s bougie. She spends it on designer stuff. And then when she goes home, all her old stuff is in storage. So when she goes home and she’s on a mission, I wanted to see her slowly becoming kind of her teenage self. We wanted Natalie’s stuff from storage to always appear self-created—like she was an arts-and-crafts kind of teen punk. [Hence, the scene with her wearing] the safety-pin necklace and Yves Saint Laurent ripped white T-shirt.

In becoming Natalie, how did you want to imbue your own sense of style into things? Did you pull from your own closet?

When she goes home and goes back into storage, I definitely would throw out ideas, and wardrobe would complete the vision. There’s this one outfit where it’s my high-waist Dolce & Gabbana leopard-print pants, my friend’s vegan-leather motorcycle jacket, and then a T-shirt of Amyl and the Sniffers, who are among the few female-fronted bands of what, to me, is the new punk that’s emerging. So that was my idea to wear her Amyl and the Sniffers band T-shirt. They’re from Australia and a new really exciting punk band. I thought that was very Natalie. She would know what the underground music stuff is. I sometimes brought in vintage or thrifted pieces I’d find on my days off, like the leopard-print dress she wears in a scene with her old sponsor to give the impression she has her life together. And then when she breaks out fishnets, that’s all me, that’s not written. It’s just a little Juliette-ism and me paying homage to Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan.

In mood-boarding for Natalie’s style and beauty, what icons were you guys referencing?

It was funny because every idea [Sophie and I] threw out, we shared in common, like Nina Hagen, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, and Siouxsie Sioux were a big influence on the hair and makeup. Nina Hagen was the fun surprise because not a lot of people know her, and she has this fierce eyeliner. There’s a Blondie reference you’ll see in episode 10. Marie and I literally came up with a dress totally inspired by Blondie. It was from a Chris Stein photograph where she’s wearing a one-shoulder asymmetrical dress. You know, classic—she’s in her New York apartment looking disco but punk disco. I’ll just say that all the girls get together and go to an event, so we each had to have what our looks would be at that party. That was really fun to create that. I’d never done that before.

Natalie really loves to lay the eyeliner on thick. Why is it her makeup signature?

It’s funny when you do makeup on a character because eyeliner is always the question: to line inside or to not line inside? That’s the question because it’s such a specific look. So I definitely thought she would be an eyeliner person the entire show, except for once or twice she might be totally clean faced or run down. It was a unanimous thing with the hair and makeup, all our style choices.

Both as a teenager and as an adult, Natalie’s choppy bob is epic. What inspired this style?

For hair, it was about Blondie’s bob disheveled in a perfect way. My hair was already in this way from a prior job. I think in her other life, when she’s hustling, trying to make money, she’s more polished, but once she goes home, it was definitely an intention to be deconstructed, looking a little bit rougher. Also because she starts using again. It’s this funny mix of not giving a fuck but also a little bit vain or creative, you might say, expressive. She expresses herself in the visuals, whereas for some of the other characters, it’s not that important. I think it comes from not having a big sense of purpose or self, as you’ll learn where she ends up in the final episode. It’s pretty dark.

The hotel-room scene—making that spiral—in episode eight was such a standout moment for Natalie, both in terms of her plot development and from a visual standpoint. Could you talk me through it?

That was so fun because my character slowly just spends lots of time in a hotel. So she’s purposeless, and it all becomes a person, like playing dress-up. Sometimes when you’re creating, you just open yourself up, and by being open, the thought just came. I knew I had to explode and break the TV, but I wanted it to be a little bit aesthetic. I could bore people to tears, but I think about these things. [Laughs.] To me it was about her loss of identity and self—that’s what that mask represented in all her toxic bravado and posturing being ripped away. It’s her last attempt with finding out about Travis, and then I just loved the idea to play against the violence by having her in a mask. She starts to go into madness, and for whatever reason, I pictured that cold-cream mask. Our brilliant makeup artist Patricia Murray had to create a perfect mixture that was dense enough and read on camera. That was fun.

And what about the face mask as a nod to Mommie Dearest?

So that’s all my high-brow intellectualization of creativity. [Laughs.] It’s literally what lives in my DNA of things that were huge, impactful influences on me as a kid. I loved Mommie Dearest. Totally a reference to Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in the ’80s.

Yellowjackets is set in the ’90s. What has it been like revisiting that decade, and how do you think Natalie put her spin on the style and attitude of the time?

It’s so perfect because we had to meld our two Natalies. The younger Natalie is who my Natalie reverts to. Every little detail, from the necklace to the leather jacket, was supposed to link the past to the present. And Sophie just wears it so well. We decided early on that it’s totally fine that I’m not blonde, that she bleaches her hair in the ’90s as a kid in high school. That made sense. The visual storytelling had so much to do with Sophie, and I want to sing her praises. We already have chemistry between us. We bonded swapping music, and she has a very laid-back nature. She very specifically was watching me and trying to manifest this Natalie persona, and it’s just a testament to her brilliance. She’s so heartbreaking and present. I love watching her!

Yellowjackets has caught like wildfire. There are so many fans that are obsessed. Why do you think this show is resonating with people so much? For you, what are the most exciting themes it tackles?

I can never tell why something hits and why something doesn’t, honestly. That’s some zeitgeist stuff. [Laughs.] I’ve worked on things where everybody’s heart is in it, we’re all in love, and then it doesn’t do anything. So this is really special. Honestly, I do think it’s fresh in that the way it’s done is very exciting and different. The mystery and darkness and twists, you just don’t expect it and you don’t see it coming. That’s really exciting too. I have people stopping me on the street wanting to know certain things. People love a good mystery. It’s fun trying to figure things out. I like things that leave you with more questions than answers.

Lastly, no spoilers, but as we wait with bated breath for the finale, what can you say about where Natalie’s headed now that she’s “unearthed her true madness,” as you put it on Instagram?

There’s a huge opening that busts through a whole other doorway of mystery in the present day. That’s gonna be kind of a holy-fuck thing. And it has everything to do with Natalie at the end. Two things are very, for lack of a better phrase, holy-shit moments. Because even for me, when I filmed this one particular scene…I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and you’re always so excited when it’s like, Oh, I’ve never done that on camera before. Super tragic…so it’ll follow along those lines. But yeah, I can’t say anything! I’m the worst secret keeper. We introduce some new elements at the end, elements we didn’t see coming. The big ploy or trick with the Natalie character is you think she’s one thing the whole time, which I’ve been labeling toxic strength because it’s this shield of armor that’s come out of survival from trauma or hardship. She sort of devolves into patheticness, but she will rise again, I think, in the second season. We’ll see. There’s more to be known, but she’s the ultimate survivalist.

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