AN UNEXPECTED EVENT—AND AN UNPRECEDENTED YEAR—ENCOURAGED HELÉNE YORKE TO RECONSIDER HER CAREER PATH.
Heléne Yorke picked up at least one new skill during her quarantine year: skiing. Sort of.
The Other Two star decided to watch some YouTube tutorials when she went to the Catskills with her fiance a few weeks before filming on the HBO Max comedy was set to resume. “I was like, ‘I’ll be fine. I’m really coordinated. I’m in shape,’” Yorke says. After she got started, her confidence soared. “So I went to this other easy hill and I got so fast, so quick,” she says. “I was swerving to try to slow down and tore my whole ACL.”
Not only did this screw up her vacation—her then-boyfriend, now-fiance had planned to propose that week—it also meant she returned to set a full year after production on season two was paused with a fun new accessory: a knee brace that she wore through the rest of filming (she eventually got surgery).
The Other Two follows the two older siblings of a teen pop star as they figure out their lives and careers. At the end of the first season, Yorke’s Brooke became her little brother’s manager. As season two begins, Brooke is realizing that her life will be a lot more than the crazy parties and celebrity pals she envisioned. It turns out the job is a lot harder than she expected.
In real life, Yorke has begun to think about what she wants in her own career. She spent years working in theater before transitioning to television, and now the Michigan-trained actor is setting her sights on new endeavors. Rather than stay content being “Reese Witherspoon lite,” she jokes, she’s started working on a script with her actor friend Max Jenkins (Dead to Me). Much like Witherspoon, Yorke is excited to create her own opportunities.
“Especially in the last year where purpose got totally thrown out the window, to be able to remember that there are different ways in which your creative brain works was really exciting and thrilling,” she says. “It’s hard, and it’s worth it. Worth the extra mile.”
Photography by: Justin Patterson
