Actress Melissa Barrera shared that, since being fired from the “Scream” series over her opposition to the Israel-Hamas war, she’s found closure with her “Scream” character Sam. “I feel like I’ve gotten closure, yeah. My head is clear,” Barrera told Collider’s “Ladies Night” podcast while promoting her new horror film “Abigail.”
“I feel like the ending of 6 was a very good ending, and so I don’t feel like, ‘Aw, I got left in the middle of a— no,” she continued. “I think people, the fans, were wanting a third movie to kind of continue that arc — and apparently, the plan was a trilogy, even though I was only contracted for two movies.”
“So, I did my two movies,” Barrera continued. “And I’m fine. You know? I’m good with that. I got two! That’s more than most people get, and it’s like… it’s like when you’re on a TV show, and it gets canceled. You can’t harp on things, you’ve got to move on. That’s the nature… that’s the nature of this industry, too. I get excited for the new job.”
Barrera was fired from “Scream 7” after she posted social media content that stakeholders in the film felt waded into antisemitism. On one Instagram story, Barrera wrote, “Gaza is currently being treated like a concentration camp.”
Barrera also spoke about her newfound appreciation for social media, something she said didn’t really exist before. “You need a few people on TikTok to notice a great movie and then it can go viral and it can become huge. That’s why I love social media,” she explained.
“I have a newfound love for social media, because I used to have a love/hate relationship with it, 80% hate, because I just thought that it was like the typical, everybody’s just putting the best of their lives and everything is fake, and it just breeds so much insecurity in a lot of people, and everybody’s just obsessed with the physical and the front of, ‘Look at how great my life is,’ and all of that. I was like, ‘I hate it. It’s so fake,’” Barrera continued.
But now, she added, she’s seen the power social media platforms have and she appreciates “the power of that communication, the power that it can give creators, how it can actually elevate and give beautiful opportunities to deserving people.”
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