Sarah Desjardins is flying high, as she stars in two hit series: Yellowjackets, which is currently streaming on Showtime, and The Night Agent, which is on Netflix.
“It’s so great to have this kind of opportunity,” the 28-year-old exclusively tells GRAZIA USA of nabbing roles on both series. “I actually auditioned to be young Shauna when they were going to shoot the pilot. I’ve admired Melanie Lynskey as an actress for so many years. I was like, ‘That would be cool!’ I read the pilot, and I could tell it was special. I was like, ‘They would be crazy to not make the show!'”
However, the rising star didn’t hear anything back, but then when she got the audition to play Melanie’s daughter, she thought, ‘What will I do with myself if I get this part?'”
“And then I did! It’s such an incredible show, and everyone is so lovely and talented. It’s filled with so many women, and I get to learn from them every day at work, and it’s so special,” she recalls.
The series, which debuted in November 2021, quickly found a following after viewers started watching two timelines play out. Yellowjackets focuses on a wildly talented group of high schoolers on the soccer team who survive a plane crash in the wilderness. Sophie Nélisse, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sophie Thatcher and Sammi Hanratty star as the teenagers, while Melanie Lynskey, Tawny Cypress, Christina Ricci and Juliette Lewis portray their adult counterparts as they reveal where they all stand 25 years later after the traumatic incident. For her part, Desjardins plays Callie Sadecki, Shauna’s daughter.
Since Desjardins gets to work with such amazing women, she notes how Lynskey taught her “the importance of playing within shooting our scenes.”
“The way I have grown up, I have this perfectionist, controlling side to me, and I think I can be too rigid when acting and too hard on myself, and that’s something they taught me,” she says. “To play and have fun and each take is a different one. They also improvise a lot, which at first, I was like, ‘I can’t do that!’ But at the end of season 1, I was like, ‘I’ll just try and see what happens if I do it!’ It’s very freeing, and it makes everything more real. What I really learned from Melanie was to be in the moment. I personally can get caught up in what I want to do or what I want to be, and Melanie has been doing this forever. She gives all these incredible and vulnerable performances, and she has freedom within herself, and that is definitely something I am working towards as a young adult woman. She’s so humble.”
“In terms of the women on set, I feel like it’s a great example of holding your space and your power, but in a respectful way,” she adds. “In this business, especially for women, it’s an interesting balance because if we stand up for ourselves, then we’re divas. So, it was a big masterclass, and all the women on set stand their ground, which was informative for me.”
Since the role of Callie is dark and gritty, Desjardins says the role is “so different” from who she is in real life. “I really need to think about how this person would feel and get into their mindset,” she shares. “In season 1, everyone found her so insufferable, and I was like, ‘Oh good, I guess I am doing a good job!’ I never had that bratty phase in real life. She’s looking to be seen and for love and affection, and I could relate to that. The best part about playing her is getting to see the dynamics play out with her parents and getting to do all the high jinks and fun scenes together. I enjoy working with Melanie and Warren Cole [who plays Jeff] as my parents.”
“It’s important to me to show all of Callie’s layers, because again, I am a perfectionist,” she continues.
For the Canada native, landing a part in Yellowjackets, which has been praised by critics and fans alike, is something she is so grateful for. “This is a dream,” she gushes. “Especially this year, Callie’s character has become more developed. To be a part of something where people are compelled to come up and talk to me about the show and what is going on is very fulfilling to me.”
On the other hand, the brunette beauty also plays Maddie in The Night Agent, an action show about an FBI agent answering a call that pulls him into a deadly conspiracy theory involving a mole at the White House.
“We thought there was definitely an audience for this show, obviously, but we weren’t thinking about how it would be No. 1 on the streaming service,” she says. “We were all pleasantly surprised by that! Again, The Night Agent and Yellowjackets were both similar in terms of the process — we were in the pandemic when I auditioned for these, but it was a very quick process. With Yellowjackets, I was cast off of one tape, and with The Night Agent, it was a similar situation. It’s important to me to make clear these are different characters, but they both have challenging dynamics with their parents.”
After auditioning for Rose and Ellen, the actress decided she wanted to audition for Maddie. “I saw the breakdown for Maddie’s character, and I was like, ‘I feel like this is me,'” she says. “Something that has benefitted me is even when someone is different from you, it’s like, ‘What do I think I think [whoever is making the show] wants this person to be? What’s my honest version of that?’ The Night Agent was such an incredible experience, though. I’d never done a straight action before!”
Going forward, Desjardins has a lot left to do — and she’s only getting started.
“I’m so grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given,” she declares. “Landing these jobs has forced to be in the moment and be like, ‘Sarah, this was your dream and you’re doing it. Look around you, look what’s happening!’ I want to do every genre, to be honest, and I really want to do comedy. I love that high quality rom-coms are coming back!”
“I never not want to be doing television,” she adds. “I want to dive more into film, but I am really open to any genre and format. I’ve wanted to be in this industry since I was six years old, and I think about what if 16-year-old me knew this is what I would be doing professionally. There’s so many aspects of my life she would not believe.”
Yellowjackets is currently streaming on Showtime; The Night Agent is currently streaming on Netflix.
