vulture festival 2021

Melanie Lynskey Got a Special ‘Line Reading’ of Her Yellowjackets Orgasm

Photo: Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Vulture

The new Showtime series Yellowjackets might be about cannibalism, the Ontario wilderness, ’90s nostalgia, and the beautiful game known as soccer, but there’s one particular scene in the premiere episode that stood out to viewers attending the sneak peak at this year’s Vulture Festival: Melanie Lynskey, sprawled out on the bed belonging to her character’s teenage daughter, spending some quality time with her vibrator. The laundry and marriage ennui can wait! As Lynskey recalled alongside series stars Christina Ricci and Juliette Lewis at the panel, episode director Karyn Kusama (of Jennifer’s Body fame) was tremendously specific about how the magic-wand scene should play out, right down to the mopey li’l sounds.

“It was very embarrassing to film. I would rather do a sex scene any day than masturbate,” Lynskey explained with a laugh. “Karyn was very specific about the noise. Karyn was like, ‘The orgasm needs to sound like this.’ And I was like, ‘Can’t it sound like anything?’ She was like, ‘No.’ She gave me a line reading of the orgasm.” And what exactly was that line reading, you ask? “Not really satisfied. She wanted it to be a horrible, Well, so that happened kind of noise,” she continued. “Which I think it was. I was like, ‘You’re gonna have to show me what that is.’” Oh yeah, we should probably mention, her character was staring at a photo of her daughter’s boyfriend the entire time. We’re still unsure if it’s more or less disturbing than the eating-humans part.

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Melanie Lynskey Got Line Reading of Her Yellowjackets Orgasm