Misty is always good for some comedic relief. After Yellowjackets‘ “Edible Complex” episode last week, in which Misty (Samantha Hanratty) and her fellow surviving soccer team peers eat deceased Jackie (Ella Purnell) in the wilderness, the stranded teens decided to distract themselves by throwing a baby shower for Shauna (Sophie Nelisse).
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After Misty’s broth idea was rejected, she came up with the next natural contribution — to recreate Sally Field‘s monologue from the 1989 drama Steel Magnolias. More specifically, the one where her character M’Lynn breaks down at the funeral of her daughter, Shelby (Julia Roberts).
“I watched it probably six times just to try to get what a fan would be able to see and honestly there was so much pressure for it to be good,” Hanratty, 27, exclusively told Us Weekly while attending PaleyFest in L.A. on Monday, April 3. “[The creators] were like, ‘You know, Sally Field might watch this.’ I’m like, ‘Oh my God, don’t say that. I’m gonna sweat.’ So just full on, like, total intimidation. I hope I did well. I hope I did it OK.”
In the scene, Teen Misty tries out her acting chops in front of the group in their cabin. “It’s not supposed to happen this way! I’m supposed to go first. I’ve always been ready to go first,” she cries as M’Lynn. Misty’s friend Crystal (Nuha Jes Izman) helped come up with the plan, which Hanratty called “pretty wild” on set.
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“Originally Kevin [Alves], who plays Travis, didn’t get up until the end of the scene, but they put it in the middle. So there was just this element of that was a lot more comedic than I assumed, but it worked so beautifully, and it just shows the kind of person Misty is,” Hanratty explained to Us. “Crystal is this person that pushes her out of her comfort zone and really just wants to see her thrive. She’s never had that.”
Hanratty did “a lot of takes” to nail down the emotional speech. “Everybody was really sweet to me because they knew that it was a big emotional one. As much as it’s a funny scene, it’s only funny if Misty gives it a hundred percent. And so I did give it my all,” she said. “At one point I literally had one of my dogs on set with me and I was just crying and being like, ‘If I lost my baby, what would I do?’ And then I stood up and just started sobbing.”
Hanratty has starred opposite her Adult Misty counterpart, Christina Ricci, since the show’s 2021 debut. It’s received critical acclaim, with creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson and co-executive producer Jonathan Lisco noting that the plan is for five seasons.
“We both love and trust each other so much with this character,” Hanratty told Us of Ricci, 43, noting that “there’s really been very little to no communication about really anything” to practice the same mannerisms.
“Little things like us pushing up the glasses was completely by accident. We do not know how one another did that so perfectly. I think Christina said it best because she said we both push it up to where our hands aren’t in our face. We both have just been in this for long enough to know that we don’t want to block our faces,” she continued. “We both started as childhood actors. I was six when I started and she was, like, five when she started. And we have a lot of strange similarities. Our personalities are not the same, but our lives are similar. They mirror each other and I think that we just understand Misty in a way that’s really special.”
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The horror mystery also stars Melanie Lynskey, Tawny Cypress, Juliette Lewis, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sophie Thatcher, Liv Hewson, Courtney Eaton, Steven Krueger, Warren Kole and newcomers Lauren Ambrose and Simone Kessell.
Yellowjackets airs on Showtime Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.
