How ‘Yaga’s Antihero Is Inspired by ‘Hannibal’ & ‘Dexter’
How ‘Yaga’s Antihero Is Inspired by ‘Hannibal’ & ‘Dexter’
Kelli BoyleSat, October 10, 2026 at 9:30 PM UTC
0
'Yaga' New York Comic Con 2026 interview -Star Carrie-Anne Moss and the show's creators tell all about the witchy drama costarring Noah Reid, Hudson Williams, and Clark Backo.
Hannibal Lecter, Dexter Morgan, Katherine. Yagaplaywright and executive producer Kat Sandler was inspired by Mads Mikkelsen and Michael C. Hall‘s killer characters, among other antiheroes, when writing Yaga, both the play and the series adaptation from Crave and AMC+.
When creating Katherine, played by The Matrix legend Carrie-Anne Moss, Sandler “really wanted to make a female antihero along the lines of a Dexter or a Hannibal or someone who really acts on their own moral code,” she told TV Insider in our New York Comic Con 2026 studio. “Someone who is incredibly smart, a femme fatale, someone very, very powerful, and someone who isn’t necessarily good.”
“I think we see way too many female characters that are defined by this goodness, this saintliness,” Sandler said. “I wanted to write a female character whose badness we could enjoy along with her.”
Matt Doyle / TV Insider
Moss stars in the six-episode season alongside Noah Reid, Clark Backo, and Hudson Williams, who, as revealed in their NYCC panel on October 9, joined the series in February 2026 amid the Heated Rivalry craze. Premiering October 23, Yaga reimagines the myth of Baba Yaga as a contemporary mystery thriller set in a small coastal town.
Related
See Behind-the-Scenes NYCC 2026 Photos of 'Ghosts,' 'Mayfair Witches' & More Stars
It follows Rapp (Reid), a private investigator working a case involving the disappearance of a young heir to a powerful fishery, Henry Park (Williams). Rapp finds himself at odds with an apprehensive local detective, Carson (Backo), a charismatic university professor with a taste for younger men, Katherine (Moss), and a labyrinth of enigmatic suspects, secret lives, and ancient magic.
Katherine’s got bite, but “there’s parts of Katherine that are very soft,” Sandler notes, and “there’s parts of her that are very manipulative.”
Advertisement
“She’s a really complicated woman, and that’s my favorite kind of female character to get to write,” said Sandler. “There’s elements of that softness, but there was certainly an effort made to push her further into boldness.”
Katherine, an expert in osteology (the study of bones), has a game adversary in Reid’s Rapp. “He’s very good at manipulating and getting what he needs,” Moss says in the video above. Rapp interrogates Katherine in the Yaga sneak peek scene below, but the questioning ends up going both ways. Backo’s Carson witnesses the intense exchange that’s equal parts serious and flirtatious.
“You get two manipulators meeting toe to toe, and that’s what the scene becomes,” Moss told us. “Whereas Clark’s character is just so much more pure in her execution of that. Her heart is cleaner.”
“But she seems to be having fun with it too, because she’s a little enamored by him I think, because he’s so cute,” Moss added. “It’s like he is so cute, and Noah is so adorable and so genuine. I think he had a lot of fun playing that. And I think he played it very genuinely, as you must.”
Watch the full video interview above to learn about Yaga with Moss, Sandler, and executive producer Mackenzie Donaldson. As Sandler describes it, “one moment it’s camp, one moment it’s very sexy, one moment it’s very funny. I don’t think people know who funny [Moss is].” See for yourself October 23.
Yaga, Two-Episode Series Premiere, Friday, October 23, AMC+
—Reporting by Damian Holbrook
Watch the full video on TV Insider.
Read the latest entertainment news on TV Insider.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
