Scream star Melissa Barrera told her husband nothing about her role in the film, so he thought her character would die early on. 2022 got off to a spooky start when Scream, the fifth installment in the long-running slasher franchise, arrived in theaters in January. The first movie in the series to not be directed by the late Wes Craven, the new Scream was overseen by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, and it took the franchise's meta edge to a whole new level. It tackled toxic fandom and Hollywood's current obsession with "requels"; this helped propel Scream to a solid $79 million domestic gross, paving the way for a sixth movie to get the greenlight.
Scream takes the action back to Woodsboro as another Ghostface killer emerges to terrorize the next generation of unlucky victims. Barrera's character Sam Carpenter is essentially the franchise's newest leading lady, and she returns to her hometown after her sister Tara (Jenna Ortega) is brutally attacked by the new Ghostface. As Sam begins investigating the killer, she manages to get some major players involved: Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), and Dewey Riley (David Arquette).
The filmmakers behind the new Scream went to great lengths to keep everything a secret ahead of the movie's release, and evidently Barrera did the same. In honor of Scream's home video release, Barrera told People she kept most of the details about her role a secret from her family. This was mainly because she wanted them to go into the movie blind. However, Barrera took her husband Paco Zazueta by surprise purely because he expected a different fate for Sam. She said with a laugh:
"When we finished watching it, my husband turns to me and he goes, 'You're in it a lot.' He didn't even know. I think he thought that I was going to die right away or something. It was a very nice surprise for him and he really enjoyed it."
In actuality, Sam is one of the most pivotal characters within Scream. Aside from the many ways she is positioned as the new Sidney, Sam is revealed to be the illegitimate daughter of Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich), one of the original Ghostface killers who returns to haunt Sam via hallucinations. She plays a major role in Scream's bloody finale, and she's likely to be the lead for the upcoming Scream 6. It's funny to think that Barrera's husband was surprised by her significant role in the film, though his assumption might not have been an absurd one. A good number of Scream's new characters died, after all.
Now that Scream's various twists have been dissected at length, many have begun to look ahead to Scream 6. The current plan is for production to take place this summer, though Campbell recently said she's still waiting to read a script. Nevertheless, Barrera has shown her excitement about playing Sam again and becoming a key part of the Scream family. Maybe with the next one, her husband will have a better idea of what to expect.
Source: People