LOS ANGELES — Despite how successful the Scream franchise has been for her, Neve Campbell hasn’t become an old pro at watching horror movies. “I usually cover my eyes and scream and cry during horror films,” she admits. But just because her eyes are covered doesn’t mean she isn’t enjoying herself. “These films are a roller coaster ride,” she says of the Scream films. “I think they’re great fun to watch.”
They’re just as much fun to make, she insists, and filming Scream 4 last summer was no different. “We were having fun during the filming,” she says of re-teaming with David Arquette, Courteney Cox and director Wes Craven. “We would often just go and have dinner and a nice glass of wine and have some laughs, so even during it you’re not feeling like it’s this really intense experience or dark experience, because there’s a lot of humour in these films as well. You can’t take them incredibly seriously. Part of the fun of these is that they’re so self-referential and make fun of themselves.”
Although it’s been 15 years since Scream — and 11 years since Scream 3 — it didn’t take Campbell long to get back in the Woodsboro groove. “It’s been 15 years now we’ve been doing these characters, so not difficult to jump into,” she says. “I had fun watching the films again before we started this, just to get a sense of it, and it was really nice to see that they still hold up really well. But no, it wasn’t difficult to get into the characters. With Sidney, it’s just imagining her circumstances in doing it.”
And while working with Cox and Arquette again was a treat, Campbell was particularly impressed with her younger co-stars, including franchise newcomers Hayden Panettiere and Emma Roberts.
“Courteney and I looked at each other and were like, ‘We could be their mothers,’” Campbell says with a laugh. “But they were good. They came with so much enthusiasm to the project. People keep asking whether we had to show them the ropes, and they’re professionals in their own right. They’ve had long careers already at young ages, and they came in and they did a great job.”
