‘Yellowjackets’ star Steven Krueger breaks down Coach Ben’s ‘tragic’ fate and that shocking cliffhanger
The following interview contains spoilers from the sixth episode of Yellowjackets Season 3, titled "Thanksgiving (Canada)."
The sixth episode of Yellowjackets Season 3 debuted on Paramount+ with Showtime on Friday and left fans devastated by the brutal demise of Coach Ben Scott (Steven Krueger). In "Thanksgiving (Canada)," Ben has lived to fight another day but soon begs the Yellowjackets to put him out of his misery once and for all. After Akilah (Keeya King) has a vision that Ben is their "bridge" to safety, the teenagers tie him up with the animals — and slit his Achilles tendon just to make sure he doesn't go anywhere. Tormented with guilt, Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) eventually sneaks into his camp and plunges a knife through his heart.
With Ben primed to be barbecued, the Yellowjackets prepare a ritual feast, only to be discovered by the first humans they've seen since their plane crashed in the Canadian Rockies.
Krueger spoke to Gold Derby about Ben's torture and eventual death, how Ben's sexuality impacted him, and that cliffhanger ending.
Last week, Ben was nearly executed. He avoided being shot, but in retrospect it probably would have been for the best. What was it like filming that final scene?
Even just hearing that brief little recap, I'm just like, "Oh, my God, what is this? What is this life that I'm living? What is this character that I'm playing?" He probably should have been shot last week. That would have turned out for the best. It's just wild to hear it back out loud sometimes. I mean, this whole season was a fever dream. I mean, as you've seen the lead-up to where we are now, it's been nonstop for Coach Ben and I think for the entire teen wilderness timeline.
By the time we got to these last two episodes, I knew it was going to get dark. I don't think I realized it was going to get this dark. And I'm glad that it is. I'm glad that this is where we've gotten to because, the funny thing to me about this show is we've gotten feedback this season about just how mean some of these people are, how mean some of these girls are. "Oh God, I don't even like watching them. I don't want to root for them, I don't sympathize with them."
To me, it's hilarious to think about the very first episode of the show and how gruesome that was. Like, all of the '90s flashbacks in the wilderness had girls that were literally hunting each other, killing each other, stringing them up, draining them of blood and eating them. I was always wondering when we were going to get to the point of — when do we fall off that ledge? When do we really fall off that cliff? And I think that this is the inflection point, really, of the entire series for the teen timeline.
This is the first time that they've really crossed over into what truly, despite the context, is actual murder. This is the first time they've killed somebody regardless of whether or not they're starving or need to eat or anything like that. The audience is about to see very quickly that this sets off a chain reaction. This is the first domino to fall and it's kind of a necessary piece of the puzzle for them to get to where they ultimately end up.
Natalie is the one who kills Ben — and he's begging for it at that point. She tells the other Yellowjackets she fulfilled a promise. Why was it important that Natalie be the one to kill Ben?
It had to be her. That was my hope going into this. As much as Samantha Hanratty will tell you that it should have been Misty, I knew from the get-go that it had to be Sophie Thatcher. It had to be Natalie. I think that Coach Ben and Natalie formed a bond from very early on in the series. They had a kindred relationship, right? They saw each other as outsiders. And I think they kind of connected over that in a way. And even though there've been some bumps in the road along the way, I think that they are the two that have always connected on the deepest level.
Photo credit: Colin Bentley/Paramount+ with SHOWTIME
I think it is just a very fitting and honestly beautiful ending. I mean, it's merciful, it's loving. I think that's what I liked most about it. It's not done out of vengeance, it's not done out of hatred. It's truly done out of love, and it's something that really kind of helps bring a fitting end to this character.
How do you prepare to play someone who is the subject of so much physical torture?
Honestly, it's a great question. I had a very hard time with this character. This has been the most challenging role I've played in my entire career, quite honestly. I had a very hard time trying to take the 10,000-foot bird's-eye view of the character. As an actor — part of my process — I do like to know at the beginning of every season what is the arc of this season for my character so that I can kind of craft the individual pieces along the way and make sure that we're hitting all those peaks and valleys along the way.
But for this character in particular, because of just how physically tormenting — and honestly emotionally and psychologically tormenting it was — I had to take it an episode at a time. I really couldn't focus on the bigger picture. I really couldn't focus on what happened two episodes ago or what's happening two episodes in the future. In fact, for the first time in my entire career, I didn't read the scripts when they were released to us. The scripts come out about every two weeks or so.
Our cast is so funny. Everybody is so invested in the story that the second they hit inboxes it's just dead silence. If we're on set in the cast tent, it's just everyone on their phones or on their computers just reading. Like "Don't speak to anybody. We all want to know what happens next." I couldn't do that — especially this season because I felt like I had to be so present in what I was doing in the particular episode we were filming. The second I tried to focus on what was coming next it was just too much for my brain to handle, honestly.
We see Ben watch in horror as these girls transform into monsters in the wilderness. What do you think kept his moral compass intact?
I think that the difference between what the girls are going through and what Coach Ben is going through, especially after we got past that first season, I don't think it's actually about survival anymore for Coach Ben. I think that somewhere deep inside, he probably recognizes that he's not making it out of here — so I think that his purpose shifted. And I played with that a lot, particularly in this season. My purpose, instead of trying to just stay alive, was I have to leave these girls with something.
I have to impart some sort of wisdom on these girls. I have to leave them with some sort of parting gift that is not just "stay alive." I think the way I approached it is — if I could maintain some semblance of humanity, some semblance of compassion and empathy for the people that I was around, hopefully that bleeds over into them. And they recognize that to survive, they don't necessarily have to do all of the things that they end up doing.
Obviously that was not necessarily successful in a lot of ways, but I think that's what's driving Coach Ben, especially in this last season. This is still your role. You're still the adult, you're still the mentor, you're still their coach. As soon as you devolve into that, then it's utter chaos. If there's no North star, if there's no moral compass at all anywhere left, then it's utter chaos. And truth be told, we see that as soon as Coach Ben is gone. Everything truly does descend into utter chaos almost instantaneously.
Photo credit: Colin Bentley/Paramount+ with SHOWTIME
Why did the Yellowjackets go after Ben so hard? Why do you think they convicted him of attempted murder when they likely knew he didn't set their cabin on fire?
We will never as human beings be able to understand the experience that somebody would go through if they were really in this situation. So I think that as an audience, oftentimes we underestimate just how morphed their brains have become. Especially when you're talking about teenagers.
I think sometimes we forget that we're talking about kids, we are talking about children, we are talking about — to get all scientific — people whose prefrontal cortexes are not yet fully developed. So they are fully formed based on the situation and the circumstances surrounding themselves. I don't know. How could we possibly know how they could react? I think they're so angry. I think there's so much deep-seated and latent anger, especially coming from Shauna (Sophie Nélisse).
We're awfully quick to write off the fact that her best friend died — really as a result of a fight that they got in. They then proceeded to eat her and she then gave birth to a baby which was stillborn. So I don't know. I mean, I don't really fault her for it, to be honest. I mean, yeah, I think it's easy to point to the screen and say, "Ugh, monster. Horrible person. Why is she doing this?" But don't we all do that on a daily basis?
I just find it interesting sometimes that we recoil when we see stuff like that onscreen, because sometimes I think it reminds us of the nastier parts of ourselves that we don't like to see, and we're just holding up a mirror to ourselves and to the human condition in that scenario.
How did Ben's sexuality impact him and your portrayal of the character?
It was a huge part of it. I mean, truly, it was one of the things that I spent the most time researching because I was way too young in the '90s to have really understood the entire AIDS epidemic that occurred. Especially the fact that it was centralized in New York and kind of the surrounding metro areas of New York. So this was a huge thing that I paid attention to and that I spent a lot of time researching and learning about and educating myself about going into season one.
I think that it's as much about the specific issue of his sexuality as it is about the fact that he's had to wear a mask his entire life. I don't think he's ever truly gotten the opportunity to be the person that he actually is. He's been living behind this wall, behind this facade for really his entire adult life. And I think that is a big part of what he wanted to press on to the girls if he's in this mentor role.
I think he truly wanted them to not be afraid of who they are. So if they're monsters, guess what? They're monsters. At least you're owning who you are. At least you're not having to suffer behind this wall of pretending to be somebody else. And I think that's something that I tried to interweave every step of the way with Coach Ben.
If he would have just gone away with Paul, his one true love, he never would have ended up in this situation.
It led to his death. I mean, yeah, if we want to just cut it down to the most simple version — I think that the ramifications of it are usually not quite as extreme in everyday life. We all put on masks, we all pretend to sometimes to be people that we're not. In his case, him pretending to be somebody that he's not directly led to his eventual death.
God, I get emotional a little bit honestly, just thinking about it sometimes. It's really a tragic story. And I think when you're able to kind of step back from it and see the beautiful arc that the writers created for this character — it's amazing and it's something that I hope that audiences will learn. I hope that the characters in the show learn. It's pretty incredible.
The episode ends with a shocking cliffhanger: The Yellowjackets are discovered by people they've never seen before. What were your thoughts?
Holy f---. I think we were all wondering when and how they eventually get rescued. And this is where we actually get to see that moment. I'm so freaking excited for the audience to experience this because I know that everybody's been hanging on a cliff every single episode of this entire series like, "OK, when do we get some answers?"
This truly sets off that chain reaction of a whole lot of answers coming in the second half of this season. Like I said, if those scientists stumble upon the camp and my head isn't sitting on a stake and they aren't dancing around and eating me, this goes entirely differently. That's why I think, as sad as it is, as tragic as it is, as much as I appreciate the audience saying, "Don't kill Ben, we want him to be alive. We want him to see him in the present day," this had to happen.
The story just doesn't take the same direction as it would otherwise. So I think it's really cool. I'm so excited to see what the audience reaction is to it. I even stopped reading the wilderness timeline for the last two episodes. I have the script still sitting in my inbox. And I know generally what happens — I've gotten the broad overview, but I haven't actually read the scenes because I'm honestly just so excited to watch them myself with the rest of the world.
Photo credit: Colin Bentley/Paramount+ with SHOWTIME
SIGN UP for Gold Derby’s free newsletter with latest predictions