Neve Campbell & Courteney Cox Interview For Wes Craven’s ‘Scream 4′

Wes Craven‘s highly anticipated mystery horror ‘Scream 4’ follows Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), now the author of a self-help book, who returns home to Woodsboro on the last stop of her book tour. There she reconnects with Sheriff Dewey (David Arquette) and Gale (Courteney Cox), who are now married, as well as her cousin Jill (Emma Roberts) and her Aunt Kate (Mary McDonnell). Unfortunately Sidney’s appearance also brings about the return of Ghostface, putting Sidney, Gale, and Dewey, along with Jill, her friends, and the whole town of Woodsboro in stab-happy, phone pranking, bloody danger! ‘Scream 4’ is hitting cinemas April 15th.

Was it easy to get back into character after all these years?

Neve Campbell: Yeah, it has been 15 years now we’ve been doing these characters, so it’s not difficult to jump into. 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 held up really well. But it wasn’t difficult to get into characters. With Sidney it’s just imagining her circumstances and doing it. Coming back the first day I was excited to see everyone to be honest. Sidney is a character I think the audience are fond of and I’m fond of, it’s funny you have a relationship with the character after playing them for a long time, you start having an affinity with them.

What do you think is the secret ingredient that makes Wes’ movies so consistently scary?

Courteney Cox: He’s an amazing filmmaker, David and I were talking about this earlier in an earlier interview, but he’s always….yes, he is the master of this, he’s made three of these films now, four of this particular film, and he’s always watching. He’s so current on everything, I don’t even know what MySpace is (laughs), he’s watching things and learning, he’s constantly bettering himself. His mind, he’s just amazing, and the way he directs Ghostface, it’s the most… The way he has his head, “Tilt his head!” – it’s so eerie. There’s something about Wes, he’s like a choreographer when it comes to Ghostface. He’s just a great director.

Neve Campbell: Shots, timing, and music. Wes just told me that Marco Beltrami did all of the films, and Wes found him on the Internet. He’s now become this phenomenal composer and very successful. Wes has a really great eye and ear, and taste in people, casting, writing, and all the people who get involved in the film. He’s also just phenomenal with timing, humour and with scaring people. I just love him, he creates an amazing atmosphere on set, he really knows how to entertain and scare an audience, and do it with whit and class.

The movie touches upon the theme of celebrity, how people perceive it, and what people do to achieve it. How do you think the definition has changed over the years?

Neve Campbell: It’s definitely shifted with reality television. It’s much easier for people to become famous nowadays, and not for a whole lot of anything. So I think the mentality has definitely changed, I think that’s a bit sad. It is what it is, and people love reality television, and we love the gossip magazines, I think maybe because there isn’t a real family here other than….we’re not too impressed with our politicians and we look for other things to look up to in some way. Whether that’s healthy, I don’t know, but it’s definitely switched.

What do you think about playing alongside the likes of Hayden Panettiere and Emma Roberts, the newcomers?

Neve Campbell: It’s great! Courteney and I looked at each other and were like, “We could be their mothers.”

Courteney Cox: Grandmother (Laughs).

Neve Campbell: (Laughs) But they were good, real 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 rights. They’ve had long careers already at young ages, they came in and they did a great job.