Steven Prusakowski
Yellowjackets left jaws on the floor many times in season three. But it was Steven Krueger’s portrayal of Coach Ben Scott, the beating pulse behind some of the most searing moments, that ultimately ripped fans’ hearts out. The soccer coach turned wilderness survivor, Krueger crafts a performance that’s equal parts visceral, physical, and vulnerable. Over three seasons he remained the ethical litmus test for a stranded group of soccer players who are losing themselves as they transform from a team to a cannibalistic tribe.
In a recent interview with Awards Radar, Krueger dissected his work as Coach Ben—a role that gave him a fleshed out character, room for creative interpretation, and the physical challenge of often working one-legged after the tortured character went through a stomach churning post-crash amputation. The role required discipline, instinct, and commitment to shape Ben’s heartbreaking journey. Krueger’s words pull back the curtain on how he physically and mentally transformed the character into one whose impact will be felt long after digested.
Krueger’s discipline is evident in his calculated physical evolution, a series-long commitment to mirror Ben’s decline. To help make his physical erosion more prominent the actor did not start with weight loss, instead choosing to gain weight. “I started the long game. I like as much information as I possibly can have. Part of the job of acting is you have to know more than the audience,” shared Krueger.
“At the beginning of season one, I put on a lot of weight. [Coach Ben] is 1990s New Jersey former athlete, muscled out beefcake, perfectly fit. I knew that I could gradually lose the weight. By the time we got to season two, I was down to my normal operating weight,” he explained. “Then going into this season, I started months out. The first script said, ‘Ben looks as gaunt as we’ve ever seen him‘. [Ben] has kind of been off on my own, just grounging for food, trying to catch whatever [he] can. So that was important to me. There’s a whole thing around actors and weights and what they’re doing for roles and… how extreme actors go to me should always be dictated by the story.”
Krueger’s work was not stunt acting, it was layered storytelling. His commitment to Coach’s physical decline conveyed a character who was not only struggling with physical malnourishment as he would abstain from any of the cannibal feasts, but also a loss of morale as he witnessed these young women he coached regress in the most primal of ways. Every glance and stagger felt painfully real, as Ben struggled to stick to his beliefs in a setting that would beat down even the strongest willed.
This season showcased both the physical toll of being stranded in the wilderness and the impact on Coach Ben’s mental state as he responded to voices only he could hear. While fans have numerous theories of voice origins, Krueger revealed that they were not specifically defined by the writers, who trusted him to portray them as a psychological response to Ben’s mental deterioration after six months alone.
“I was talking to whoever I thought might be there, whether it was my subconscious, whether it was my alter ego, whether it was Paul (François Arnaud), I was just trying to make conversation with anybody. That is not the first time that I’ve been talking to somebody.”
Another burning question fans have not been able to shake, who set fire to the cabin. The actor does provide some insight, but no answers, which he feels is kind of the point. “Some stuff we leave a little bit more vague and ambiguous. For instance, I don’t think we’re ever really gonna find out if we’re ever really gonna know who burned down the cabin or what happened to the cabin,” shared Krueger. “I think that’s one of those great stories. Was it Ben? I don’t know, maybe, maybe not. Was it the other other Tai? Was it just a spark that got lifted in the wind from having a bunch of open flames and an old wooden cabin? Who knows? But the important thing is the effect that it had on the group and what happened afterwards, like what transpired because of those events.”
Where discipline laid the groundwork, Krueger’s instincts elevated the final moments of Coach Ben with a prime cut in letting go in one of the most powerful moments of the series. Coach, who is now the captive of the Yellowjackets, wasting away, unwilling to eat. He is gaunt, weakened, disheartened and hoping to die – a shell of the man he was before the crash. His condition is too much for Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) who decides to put him out of his misery. The actor found the closure of his character to be quite fitting. “When I first when I first found out about exactly what the destiny would be, I was like, this is poetic. This is exactly what should happen – it should absolutely be Natalie that does the final act as kind of a mercy killing,” explained Krueger. “And then also just for me as an actor, working with Sophie Thatcher is one of my favorite things in the world.”
“If I have a scene with her, my entire body just relaxes, I know that I’m not gonna have to work too hard, I know that I can just be with her and be present in the moment… I went into that scene… knowing what it was, and having an idea of how it should look. But I also let the idea go because I was like, let’s just see what happens with Sophie and I. We really played off of each other and just kind of let it breathe as much as possible,” continued Krueger. “That naturally led to all of the emotion. This was a long goodbye for the character and for me as an actor on the show as well. So everything just came together really, really beautifully, I thought.”
Krueger’s ability to abandon preconceptions and lean into the energy of each scene created a performance that’s raw, wrenching, and unforgettable—ending a goodbye that gutted fans. It is a testament to an actor who wove discipline, instinct, and courage into every frame. His transformation, presence, and moral weight turned Coach Ben into a character we couldn’t look away from, even as he broke us.
Even post death, Coach Ben’s presence continued to be felt, especially when his decapitated head lead to the literal “WTF!” moment (one of my favorites not only of the series but of recent TV as a whole). Watch the full interview below for: the amputation challenges, learning the fate of his character, funeral parties, Coach Ben ghost detective, and much more.
All three seasons of Yellowjackets are now airing in their entirety on Paramount+.
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