Showtime has enlisted Obi-Wan Kenobi actress Simone Kessell to play the role of the mysterious Lottie Matthews in Emmy-nominated ‘Yellowjackets’ present-day storyline. The character’s arrival was teased in the season one finale and set off a wave of online casting suggestions for the breakout series.
Courtney Eaton, who plays the 1996-set version of Lottie, has also been promoted to series regular.
Kessell becomes the latest new addition to the present-day storyline on Yellowjackets. Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under) was recently added to the cast as the adult version of Liv Hewson’s Van. Hewson was also promoted to series regular for season two.
The casting arrives after the January freshman season finale opened the door for additional surviving members of the Yellowjackets soccer team to appear in the show’s present-day storyline. Creators/showrunners Bart Nickerson and Ashley Lyle, in an hourlong interview with TV’s Top 5, said the adult version of Lottie would be among the new characters introduced in season two.
Adult Ali, the Yellowjacket whose leg Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown) broke in the pilot, will also be among those likely to return. “In terms of other survivors, we plant the flag that Lottie is lurking in the shadows and meeting her in the near future. Ideally, we will probably meet at least one other,” Lyle said.
Kessell joins fellow Yellowjackets adult castmembers including Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci, Juliette Lewis and Tawney Cypress. The 1990s-set drama counts stars including Hewson, Ella Purnell, Samantha Hanratty, Sophie Thatcher, Brown and Sophie Nelisse. Lyle, Nickerson and Jonathan Lisco serve as exec producers and showrunners.
Season two is poised to begin production Aug. 30. A return date has not yet been announced.
“When you have someone playing the 1996 version already, it’s harder to cast that second person after you have the first person embodying it,” Nickerson told THR in a recent Emmy interview. “It’s a degree of difficulty that makes it exciting and satisfying when the fans know who it should be. It’s like solving a puzzle — you have so few options because the character already exists.”
Kessell’s other credits include Our Flag Means Death and Terra Nova. She’s currently onscreen as Breha Organa, the mother to the child version of Princess Leia, on the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi. She’s repped by Buchwald.
