Matthew Lillard Feels ‘Ashamed’ for Returning to Scream Franchise After Melissa Barrera Firing: ‘I Blew That’

Matthew Lillard confessed he was “embarrassed” to appear in “Scream 7” because he was on the “wrong side of history” after Melissa Barrera was infamously fired.

via: EW

The actor, who starred as OG Ghostface Stu Macher in the original 1996 slasher and returned for the seventh entry, was candid about his complex feelings during a Tuesday night Q&A session for a Scream 30th anniversary screening. Lillard was taking questions from the audience when one fan asked about the difficulty of speaking out on contentious political issues as a public figure.

“I don’t know how else to do it,” Lillard replied in a fan-recorded video. “For me, I have queer kids. If I’m not standing up for queer kids or kids in the trans community then what the f--k am I doing? If I’m not standing up against ICE, then what the f--k am I doing?”

That said, the actor added, “I don’t think it’s easy all the time.”

He then pointed to Barrera, who was fired from what would have marked her third Scream film after she shared a series of social media posts expressing support for the Palestinian cause and criticizing Israeli actions, a move that the film’s production company Spyglass Entertainment deemed “hate speech.”

“Melissa Barrera, who’s a beautiful actor, was fired for what she said after the whole Palestinian— what started happening in Israel,” Lillard said. “It’s really f---ing bulls--- and really hard and she’s on the right side of history.”

He added, “When they start coming after your job, sometimes things are worth it.”

Lillard then condemned Hollywood’s response to Barrera, who has said that job offers dried up after she was dropped from the franchise.

“When that happened to Melissa, the whole world didn’t pipe up,” he said. “But she was a year early on what the f---’s going on. But the whole world should have popped up and said, ‘She’s right.’ And they didn’t. And that’s brutal.”

Lillard added that he was among those who should have responded differently, expressing some regret over his decision to rejoin the franchise.

“I went back to do Scream, and I got called out. And I’m like, ‘Oh, f---. That’s brutal,’” he shared. “I feel bad about that. I feel ashamed about that. Because in that moment I was so excited to go back, I didn’t really think about Melissa and that journey. I didn’t say no.”

He continued, “I’m embarrassed, that’s the truth… I blew that. I’m on the wrong side of history for that. I still like being in the movie [but] it may not have been the best idea.”

Representatives for Barrera did not immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly‘s request for comment.

In 2022, the Scream franchise relaunched with Barrera as the new lead of the meta horror franchise. For two movies, she starred as Sam Carpenter, the secret love child of deceased Ghostface killer Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich), who haunts her in ghost form. But as production company Spyglass was gearing up for Scream 7, it dropped the actress in late 2023 for making pro-Palestine statements on social media in which she criticized the actions of Israel in the Israel-Hamas war and called for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Spyglass said at the time it has “zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form.” Barrera responded by condemning antisemitism while emphasizing the importance of using her platform “to raise awareness about issues I care about.”

She said at the time, “Silence is not an option for me.”

The result was a massive creative overhaul as director Christopher Landon and Barrera’s costar Jenna Ortega also exited the production. Though Ortega’s departure was originally chalked up to scheduling with her Netflix series Wednesday, the actress has since acknowledged the truth behind her departure.

“It was all kind of falling apart,” she told The Cut last year. “If Scream VII wasn’t going to be with that team of directors and those people I fell in love with, then it didn’t seem like the right move for me in my career at the time.”

The seventh film pivoted to recenter the franchise’s original final girl, Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott. OG Scream scribe Kevin Williamson returned to co-write and direct the seventh film, in which a new Ghostface targets Sidney’s daughter, Tatum (Isabel May).