Scream (2022)'s Melissa Barrera, who played Sam Carpenter, recently chatted with The Hollywood Reporter about her role in the new movie. In the interview, Melissa hits on what it was like being the illegitimate daughter of Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich), standing as a survivor next to Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox, and the possibility of returning to the world of Scream again.
On having the hallucinations of Billy Loomis:
“It’s always through a mirror when Sam sees Billy, and I shot all of those scenes by myself,” Barrera tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Sometimes, I would shoot those scenes with a tennis ball on a stand, and someone would also read his lines. And because of Covid, Skeet [Ulrich] didn’t come until the very end of the shoot. He was there for a couple days, and we shot all of his stuff. So I was there for him, doing my performance for him, so that he knew what to give me. Because I had already shot all of my stuff. I wish that he had been there for all of my stuff when I shot it, but sadly, Covid…”
On potentially playing Sam Carpenter in Scream 6 and beyond:
100 percent. There’s nothing I would rather do, especially if I get to go back with Jenna, Mason [Gooding] and Jasmin, who are the other survivors. I would also work for Matt and Tyler until the end of time. I would do anything with them. They did such a good job with this and they created such an incredible environment to shoot this movie. So I just want to repeat it again and again. The environment that Wes created kept Courtney, David and Neve coming back, and I think Matt and Tyler have done their best to try and replicate that experience for everyone. They’ve done a really good job.
On standing triumphantly next to Sidney and Gale at the end:
Oh my gosh, I couldn’t believe it. It was a pinch-me moment that literally brought tears to my eyes because I was standing beside Courtney and Neve. And that’s also why this franchise is so good because it’s always been focused on badass women. So the fact that I got to be a part of that trio is so surreal. It’s still incredible to me that I got to be a part of it and that I got to work alongside them and learn so much from them. And now I have that image immortalized forever. I get to have that image and those memories from that day, and I’ll remember how much fun we had.
You can read the entire interview at the link at the top of the article.
Oh, and for the record, no alternate endings or scenes were actually shot for the movie, despite the online rumors which swirled from misunderstanding what the directors said...
No, we didn’t shoot any fake scenes or anything like that. We were pretty protected in Wilmington, and during Covid and with the budget that we had, we didn’t have the luxury of just spending more time shooting other scenes that we weren’t going to use. It sounds like fun doing that, but we didn’t do any of that.
