Kevin Alves on the emotional Vancouver set of ‘Yellowjackets” final season

“Yellowjackets” actor Kevin Alves says there’s been “lots of tears of joy” since he and his co-stars received the final two scripts for the survival saga last week.

“Reading that was a lot of emotional stuff for everybody,” the Toronto-born Alves says by phone from Vancouver, where the series has been shooting since February.

“You know, seeing how the show’s ending and that was really beautiful…. The environment on set has been incredible with the support people have given each other.”

Alves says filming is expected to continue for another month-and-a-half, but he’s coy about what that could involve for the stranded teen characters who appeared to finally make contact with the outside world in the Season 3 finale.

His character, Travis, has gone through plenty of emotional trauma since surviving a plane crash in the middle of the Canadian wilderness — including an extreme hunger that had him eat the heart of his dead sibling.

The show’s twisted and bloody sensibilities persist in the fourth and final season, Alves promises.

“The show’s gore is going to be there, I can definitely attest to that. I don’t think our show is our show without some sort of disgusting thing happening at some point. But I’m really hoping that there are no hearts in Travis’ future.”

Alves says he recently he got a chance to meet two “icons” on set, noting Molly Ringwald and June Squibb have joined the cast.

Alves says he is eager to see what the famed “Breakfast Club” actress and “Nebraska” Oscar-nominee will bring to the series, in which a second timeline decades after the crash follows adult survivors played by Christina Ricci, Juliette Lewis, Melanie Lynskey and Hilary Swank.

“That’s what this show’s always done well, bringing these people from classic films and television into our show,” says Alves.

“They’ve integrated so well, and they feed off each other. I’ve been a June Squibb fan forever and Molly is such an icon. I did get to say hi to Molly, and Molly’s just been so incredible to everyone.”

Alves says he will always be thankful to “Yellowjackets” for introducing him to his life partner Alexa Barajas, who plays Mari on the show.

The couple have teamed up to produce and star in a self-funded feature film project called “Lucky Weekend,” poised to make its festival debut Monday at the Raindance Film Festival in London, billed as the largest independent film festival in the U.K.

Alves also wrote and directed the film, about a group of high school students who find out someone has stolen their winning lottery ticket and they join forces to get it back.

Along with Toronto producer Julian Smither, Alves says the film features an entirely Canadian cast and crew, many of them first-time filmmakers. They spent 17 days shooting in Ontario.

“It didn’t feel like a risk. It felt like friends that were going to make something happen and then we’d be proud of that no matter what,” he says.

The cast also includes Jessica Clement, best known for her role in Prime Video’s “Gen V,” and Alex Ozerov-Meyer of Netflix’s “Another Life.”

Alves says he’s looking for distribution and sales out of the festival.

“The most important thing is getting it out there to as many audiences as we can and finding its audience somewhere. So that’s going to be our big next step, is just finding the right place and the right people who will champion the film.”

Alves says the success of “Yellowjackets” helped him follow his feature film dreams, noting that the Emmy-nominated show “opened up so many doors.”

Alves describes the series, available on Crave, as “Lord of the Flies” meets “Lost.”

When audiences catch up with Travis in Season 4, Alves says the character is grappling with a lot of emotional baggage and is weighed down by the trauma of watching his friends die.

At the end of Season 3, Natalie, played by Sophie Thatcher, screams for help into a transponder at the top of a mountain. A voice from the box responds: “I can hear you.”

“All I can say to that is we do know — as we’ve all seen in episode 2 of Season 2 — we do know the Yellowjackets do come back and I couldn’t imagine the show ending without us being back at some point,” says Alves.

“I couldn’t imagine it, so take (from) that what you will.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 21, 2026.

Craig Macrae, The Canadian Press