Yaga, the AMC+ mystery that reinvents Baba Yaga, premieres October 23
Moss plays a professor with a taste for younger men in the AMC+ mystery, and she explains why a deadpan nod to Keanu Reeves’s hitman is no big joke to her.
By
Sanjay Mistry
In brief
- Yaga, an AMC+ drama built on the Baba Yaga myth, premieres on October 23.
- Kat Sandler adapts her own play and serves as showrunner.
- Moss plays Katherine, a university professor in a coastal town.
- Moss calls her John Wick line a throwaway and says she shot it several ways.
In Yaga, a character mentions John Wick and Carrie-Anne Moss answers with a flat “What’s John Wick?” Moss says the moment is less loaded than fans may assume. She discussed the line, and the series itself, in an interview with IGN ahead of the show’s debut.
A modern take on a Slavic monster
Yaga offers a contemporary twist on the Baba Yaga myth. It is based on a play by Kat Sandler, who also runs the series as showrunner.
The story begins when Rapp, a private investigator played by Noah Reid, arrives in Whittock, a small coastal town. He is there to look into the disappearance of Henry Park, the young heir to a powerful fishery. Locals do not make it easy: a wary detective, Carson, stands in his way, and so do a circle of enigmatic suspects, secret lives and ancient magic.
Who plays whom
| Actor | Character | Role in the story |
|---|---|---|
| Noah Reid | Rapp | Private investigator |
| Hudson Williams (Heated Rivalry) | Henry Park | Missing heir to a fishery |
| Clark Backo | Carson | Apprehensive local detective |
| Carrie-Anne Moss | Katherine | Charismatic university professor with a taste for younger men |
Moss is best known for The Matrix, Star Wars: The Acolyte and Jessica Jones.
Baba Yaga, and a nickname that belongs to Keanu Reeves
Timing helped bring Moss to the project. She says she had been researching Baba Yaga mythology independently about a week before she was brought onto the show. Her interest is older than that. “I had come across that story when I was in my 20s through a book called Women Who Run With the Wolves,” she says.
Baba Yaga is a legendary, sinister female monster from Slavic folklore. She is also the nickname of John Wick, played by Keanu Reeves, Moss’s Matrix costar. That overlap is what gives the deadpan line its charge. Moss acknowledges fans might read it as a meta joke, but she describes her own view differently: “I’m a huge fan of John Wick, so I’ll start with that.”
She says she is usually hesitant about nods of that kind. The line was written a couple of different ways, she shot it several of them, and the production chose which version to use. Her verdict: “I understand why it was there, and I’m okay with it being in there, but it’s a throwaway line.”
A fast shoot and some careful scenes
Moss has intimate scenes with younger men in the series, including with Williams. Her sons are close in age to him, she says, and she stayed respectful of that. She describes keeping her own energy and her distance, because a nurturing person can easily slip into a maternal role, which she did not want to do on screen.
Her time on set was short. “I think I was there for three weeks,” she says, adding that the pace was unlike anything she had known. Shoots usually come with long waits between takes, which she finds exhausting, while this one had no lull. She singles out Reid and Backo as a little team who made her laugh hard.
An exclusive Yaga clip debuts as part of IGN Fan Fest: Fall Edition, which ends with a livestream on October 14.
Photo: Pere Romero Alonso / Pexels
