Coach Ben finds himself in unchartered territory in Yellowjackets Season 3, separated from the rest of the team. Steve Krueger sat down exclusively with Parade to discuss how his character's isolation plays into the themes of Ben's deepest fears, how he's adapting to the physical nature of playing a person with a disability and, of course, whether Ben burned down the cabin. Keep reading for his thoughts.
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When asked if he knows whether Coach Ben burned down the cabin, Krueger says the writers left it up to him to decide if he thinks his character did it.
"They left that a mystery for me to decide for myself. I think we're going to see this season in the show ... maybe I did. Maybe I didn't. We don't necessarily get a firm answer whether I burned the cabin down or not. The funny thing is ... I remember them talking in the writers' room and I was told by a few writers about this at the end of last season that there was an internal debate in the room about it. Did he do it? Did he not do it? Some writers said, 'Well, yes, of course he did it' and there were some other writers were like, 'Well, I don't know he did.' I think we do a really, really good job of kind of toeing that line in the storyline this season. What ends up happening is that it leads to a lot of the events you see this season."
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While he knows himself whether Ben did it or not, the events of that moment have huge implications for the season.
"Maybe it doesn't even matter if Coach Ben burned down the cabin, because everything that comes after, there's a direct line to the actions that are taken based on whether people believe that he did or did not. I worked with a very specific idea of exactly what happened, what I may or may not have done, and I think that I let that internally drive a lot of the arc I had as an actor this season."
What does Ben's isolation mean?
Krueger has talked about playing a gay man but not wanting it to feel stereotypical or trope-filled. The themes of Ben's isolation really get exacerbated this season. Being ostracized is likely Ben's worst fear as a gay man but here, his character is being separated from the group for entirely different reasons.
"This is essentially art imitating life," Krueger tells Parade. "He was isolated because of one set of reasons, one set of circumstances in his previous life and now he's in this completely different life and finds himself being isolated again. Why do I, as Ben, keep ending up in these types of circumstances, regardless of the specifics and the nature of it? Why do I keep landing on this particular set of feelings internally and getting myself into these situations? Is that something deeper? Are there some core issues with the character, with myself, that is leading me into these particular situations and how do I kind of deal with that now that I'm becoming more aware of it?"
He continues, "That's a big touch point this season — the idea of isolation. This idea of what am I personally responsible for as far as getting myself into these circumstances? Is it just unfair? Is it just unlucky or is there actually something deeper going on?"
Related: All Your Burning 'Yellowjackets' Questions and Theories Ahead of Season 3
Krueger spoke about playing a character with a disability with Coach Ben having lost his leg early on in the show — and specifically how his approach has changed over time.
"That's been a great evolution over the course of the series so far. Obviously, I have never experienced anything like this — playing a character with any sort of physical disability, especially one of this nature where it's a traumatic amputation that happens to my leg which obviously affects mobility. Especially considering the circumstances that we're in. We find ourselves in the wilderness. Movement and mobility is such a big part of being able to stay alive and survive. In Season 1, in the very beginning of this, this was something that was brand new to me. My movement was incredibly kind of awkward and stilted. Because A, as an actor, I'd never done this before but B, the character had never done this, right? This is something he is getting used to. So I felt like it actually kind of worked."
He talked about finding the right physicality for the character considering Ben has now been out in the woods for several months.
"Going into this season, knowing that we had a six-month time jump and knowing that Ben was kind of off on his own, isolated, and the fact that I have been living with this disability for a while, like about a year... I really put a lot of work into my movement and my mobility. Movement was essentially equating to my survival at this point because I am on my own. I have to find my own food, I have to find my own water, I have to find my own supplies ... I did quite a bit of work on my physical mobility, being able to not just get around but also move in interesting ways. I think we see in the first episode, me kind of setting up traps and trying to find prey. I worked a lot with being able to balance on one leg."
Krueger explains how he collaborated with stun coordinator Rhys Williams as well. "We actually figured out three or four positions," he says. "We worked on them over and over again and practiced them so that it looked like I had been doing this for the the past six months. That's an incredibly important part of Season 3 because I don't have help anymore. You know, I don't have the girls to go out and get stuff for me and to bring me food. This is all on me now."
Why he's passionate about directing
Krueger directed his first movie, a short called Leaving the Light, last year.
"This is has been something I've been wanting to do, more or less as a passion project ... it's something that I've been working on for a couple of years," Krueger says. "By the time we got through most of our season when we were shooting in Vancouver this past summer, I thought, 'Okay, you know what? This is a really good time to hit the gas and finally dive in and do this thing.'"
He describes the short as being "about a woman who is on a road trip with her 3-year-old daughter in the middle of a post-apocalyptic kind of scenario and trying to get to a safe zone. So it's got a little bit of the extraterrestrial kind of vibe... suspense... thriller. And I think it's just really fun."
But the work itself was hard. "I truly cannot believe how intricate and detailed it is and just how exhausting the process can be," Krueger says, later adding that he plans to take the film to the festival circuits.
After that, he says, "I don't think I would [direct] again right away, but I am excited to continue down this path of directing and kind of see where it leads me."
The first two episodes of Yellowjackets are available to stream now on Paramount+.
Related: How Did Season 2 of 'Yellowjackets' End? A Recap Ahead of Season 3
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