After spending the first two episodes of Yellowjackets’ second season in the shadows, Elijah Wood’s Walter finally stands revealed in episode three, “Digestif.” He’s not just standing there, either. He’s wielding a power saw over an interrogation victim, at the behest of fellow citizen detective Misty Giles (Christina Ricci). It’s an unexpected outcome for Walter, if not for viewers who know Misty’s terrifying tactics all too well by now. But it’s enough of a thrill for Walter to propose continued collaborations with Misty, offering to look into the disappearance of her friend and fellow Yellowjacket Natalie. Just one problem: Walter is also trying to solve the disappearance of Adam, Shauna’s dead lover, whose corpse Misty had a hand in dismembering. Walter, keep a tight grip on that power saw.
For Wood, joining Yellowjackets offered some compelling opportunities, including a reunion with Ricci, decades after working together on 1997’s The Ice Storm. “We had run into each other a couple of times as adults,” Wood tells V.F., “but hadn’t worked together since we were kids, so it was a really exciting prospect.” What’s more, for the first time in his career, Wood joined the cast of a show he was already watching, in a role created with him in mind. With Walter officially on the board (if not yet the menu), we spoke with Wood about what to expect from his citizen detective’s contributions to the greater Yellowjackets universe in the episodes ahead.
You were a Yellowjackets fan before joining the cast. Which aspects of the show drew you in?
So much of the show appeals to my taste. It’s a genre show with mystery elements and supernatural elements that are undefined. I loved the idea of this bifurcated timeline where the past informs the present. There’s this slow unraveling of what happened in the past that seems to have really traumatized everyone. It’s this unique structure, and I fell in love with it instantly. I watched the first season, and it’s the first time I’ve ever been a fan and a viewer, where I’ve then been asked to participate in a subsequent season. I couldn’t read any scripts, but they pitched the character and the essence of what would happen over the season.
As scripts are coming in and you’re getting answers about the character and the show, what was the divide for you as both a spectator and now a participant getting firsthand views of the Yellowjackets mysteries?
It’s exciting to read scripts for episodes with information you have a vested interest in. It was really fun. Reading episode two was really exciting, thrilling, and shocking. The end of that episode was so shocking, but it also really delivered in a — no pun intended — delicious way. For me, playing a character in this world, and having an investment in the narrative from the first season and wanting to see where it’s going, and now being invested in what’s going to happen… reading those scripts and being a participant was really, really fun. Knowing what’s to come, things that fans are anticipating? That’s so fun as well. I’m part of something with so much mystery, where so much has yet to be revealed, and people anticipate and unpack those things as they come out. Getting to be a part of a project that serves an audience that way is thrilling.
What did you find most intriguing about Walter as a character, as he was initially pitched to you?
The way he was described to me is he’s an oddball and an eccentric but with a bit more of a handle on functioning in the real world, in a way that Misty maybe doesn’t. He’s kind of a counterpart to her, a good fit and a match, in that he can show her just by existing a way to function and a way that might be more achievable for her. That was really interesting to me, how we could be the yin and the yang to each other.
The Moriarty to her Sherlock, as he tells her! Kind of an ominous way of describing their relationship.
It certainly seems to set up an adversarial relationship, which isn’t necessarily what it is. They are very much in tandem. A thing I love about Walter is his unbridled enthusiasm. I believe he’s a guy who doesn’t have much field experience at all. He’s spent a lot of time reading and educating himself on investigation and crime, but…
But this is his first time holding a power-saw at a captive?
I think this is the biggest thrill for him! He’s getting to show Misty what he’s capable of, but he’s also proving to himself that he can do these things. This interrogation of a witness is a total thrill to him. But I don’t think it’s something he’s used to. He has the skills, is very intelligent, and knows what he’s doing, but I don’t think he’s done it before. I think that’s reflected in his giddiness.
We actually shot all of the interrogation scenes together. It was originally meant to be two different locations, where the bathroom and the hull were going to be shot separately, but we ended up shooting it all at the same time. When Christina’s in the bathroom, she was actually in there communicating with me over an earbud. It was awesome. I think it would’ve been a funny sequence anyway, but it kind of gave us an energy that would have been difficult to replicate in any other way, because it was happening in real-time.
