Mikey Madison has said she did not realise how much of an effect her role in 2022’s Scream would have on the franchise’s fanbase.
The Anora star, born in 1999, years after the first and second Scream films released in 1996 and 1997 respectively, said she wasn’t aware of the impact her character killing off a beloved character would have.
Madison played Amber Freeman in the fifth Scream film in 2022 and was revealed as Ghostface, responsible for the death of David Arquette’s character Sheriff Dewey Riley.
Scream, which also features Jenna Ortega, Melissa Barrera, Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox, follows a series of brutal murders that shocked the quiet town of Woodsboro, California, 25 years ago. A new killer dons the Ghostface mask and begins targeting a group of teenagers to resurrect secrets from the town’s deadly past.
“I have to be honest, when I did the film, it sounds naive, but I wasn’t so aware of the huge fan base that the franchise has, that I’ve now been able to discover,” Madison told Collider.
“Scream and horror fans and people who love horror films are the best people ever, but I really naively went into it.”
The actor went on to explain that while she knew Riley was a “great character”, she only understood the scale of the “heartbreak” when people came up to her.
“I remember being kind of sad because I was like, ‘Oh, such a great character. It’ll be sad to see him go.’ And then I realised afterward the heartbreak that so many people felt,” Madison said.
“People have come up to me, and they’re like, ‘I hate that this happened. I’m mad at you.’ And I’m like, ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t write the script!’ I didn’t want to do it.”
Speaking about her audition process for Scream, Madison described sending in her tape and being told after eight months that she would be playing Ghostface.
“I had auditioned. I sent in a tape, and then I heard nothing for, like, eight months or something, and I’d pretty much forgotten about it.
“Then they came back, and they were like, ‘Hey, would you want to be in this film? The character would be the Scream Ghostface character.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, that sounds really fun. I would absolutely like to do that, and I specifically would love to play this Ghostface character,’ because it’s such an interesting, fun reveal, and it’s such a crazy, unpredictable arc for a character, as well.
“I think that those films are so self-aware in a way where all the actors know exactly what kind of movie they’re in, and you’re able to have fun with it.”
The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey gave the film four stars and noted that it “doesn’t try to fix what isn’t broken. It’s a little metatextual analysis served up with a generous side of guts and gore, stabbing its cake and eating it with gleeful abandon”.
