South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Panettiere gets call for ‘Scream VI’
As “Scream” movies go, it all started with a phone call. But this was a phone call Hayden Panettiere actually wanted.
It wasn’t Ghostface on the line, looking for a kill, but rather the man behind the iconic horror villain, “Scream” writer-creator Kevin Williamson. He was calling to persuade her to reprise her role in “Scream VI,” the filmmaker told People magazine at the movie’s recent world premiere.
Panettiere had a starring role in the 2011 film “Scream 4” as Kirby Reed, a high school student in Woodsboro, California, who struggles to survive amid another Ghostface massacre. At the end of the movie, she lay in a pool of blood after being stabbed, and viewers were unsure of Kirby’s fate.
Her character didn’t return in last year’s “Scream,” sparking further questions about Kirby. During filming of the fifth film, Panettiere even called the production, asking to return, she said recently on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “I actually called them ... when they were doing ‘Scream 5,’ and I was like, ‘Without me?! Wait. Hold on. I might still be alive, and I could come in handy,’ ” Panettiere said.
However, leading up to the sixth film, now in theaters, it was the production team that came calling for her. But Williamson had difficulty tracking down Panettiere, who had taken time off from acting and moved from Los Angeles to Nashville, Tennessee.
“No one knew where she was, because she had just sort of moved out of LA,” Williamson told People. He was able to reach friends in Nashville who were able to quickly connect the two.
“They said, ‘Give me five minutes,’ and in five minutes, I was talking to her by phone,” he said.
Williamson offered up a conversation with “Scream VI” directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett.
“‘Absolutely, have them call me right away,’ ” Panettiere told Williamson.
In “Scream VI,” Panettiere’s Kirby is known as the sole survivor of the recent Woodsboro massacre. She is now a special agent with the FBI who is called in to help address Ghostface’s new slew of murders in New York City.
Panettiere said she sees similarities between herself and Kirby, as recently reported by Women’s Health. After the birth of daughter Kaya with retired boxer Wladimir Klitschko in 2014, Panettiere struggled with postpartum depression, about which she publicly spoke. She admitted herself to treatment facilities for her depression and subsequent addiction to alcohol and had to give up custody of her child.
“She has that human trauma, and it’s changed her,” Panettiere said about her “Scream” character. “That’s something I can obviously relate to.”
Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera, who both starred in the fifth “Scream” film, also reprise their roles in the new film, along with Courteney
Cox, who has portrayed Gale Weathers since Wes Craven’s original in 1996.
March 19 birthdays: Actor Renee Taylor is 90. Actor Ursula Andress is 87. Singer Clarence “Frogman” Henry is 86. Singer Ruth Pointer is 77. Actor Glenn Close is 76. Actor Bruce Willis is 68. Actor Mary Scheer is 60. Actor Connor Trinneer is 54. Actor Craig Lamar Traylor is 34. Actor Philip Bolden is 28.