Fans of “Yellowjackets” might be sad the show is ending with its upcoming fourth season, but Sophie Thatcher is “really ready” to let go of the hit series — and possibly TV altogether.
Thatcher became a household name playing the teenage Natalie Scatorccio on the hit Showtime series, which follows a high school girls’ soccer team whose plane crashes in the Canadian wilderness. But after nearly seven years of playing the same character, the actress is ready to say goodbye to the role she shared with Juliette Lewis, who played the adult Natalie.
“I’m so grateful, but I’m really ready to let go of the character, because I feel like I bring her into every movie,” Thatcher said in a wide-ranging interview with I-D published Wednesday. “It feels like Natalie is a ghost haunting me sometimes.”
The actress added that the filming process for the series was challenging and that getting back into that high school mindset often led her to experience panic attacks on set.
“I’m not joking. The fluorescent lights, and those square tiled ceilings,” she said while discussing some of her anxieties around the show. “It’s not a good feeling.”
While Thatcher is ready to bid farewell to Natalie, she said she’s aware the character has been a part of her adult life, saying she is “an extension of myself now.” In fact, that is one of the reasons she is so ready to break out of the role, adding, “and I don’t want anything to do with myself.”
Thatcher explained that closing this chapter of her life feels like “an era of freedom.” Thatcher has quickly become one of Hollywood’s most in-demand young actors, balancing the show with her growing film career. After breaking out in A24’s 2024 horror hit “Heretic” opposite Hugh Grant, she landed leading roles in the Stephen King adaptation “The Boogeyman” and the sci-fi thriller “Companion.” With her newfound success, Thatcher said she realized she might not return to television, mainly because its long production schedules don’t appeal to her.
“I don’t know if I’ll go back to television, because I’m the kind of person that wants to immerse myself in something for two months and then let it go,” she said.
As for what she wants to do next? The actress said Kelly Reichardt, Todd Solondz and, if his health improves, Lars von Trier.
“I want to set a different standard for myself and work with artists with a singular vision,” she said. “I can’t stay in the middle. I don’t want to be safe.”
Thatcher will next appear in “Her Private Hell,” “Drive” filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn’s first film in 10 years alongside Havana Rose Liu and Charles Melton.
