Skeet Ulrich Didnt Think Scream Was Supposed to be Funny Before Shooting

Skeet Ulrich Didn’t Think Scream Was Supposed to be Funny Before Shooting

Skeet Ulrich admits that he didn’t realize Scream was meant to be a comedy until his first day shooting with Matthew Lillard and Jamie Kennedy.

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Skeet Ulrich Didnt Think Scream Was Supposed to be Funny Before Shooting

Scream star Skeet Ulrich admits he didn’t realize the film was supposed to be funny until they started shooting. The original Scream film was directed by master of horror Wes Craven from a script by Kevin Williamson, who was a newcomer at the time but soon became known as a maven of blending postmodern satire with genre elements. The film follows a group of teens being menaced by a killer in a Ghostface mask, utilizing the tropes of horror movies to trap them and slash them.

In Scream, Skeet Ulrich plays Billy Loomis, boyfriend of Final Girl Sidney Prescott, played by Neve Campbell. In the end, he is revealed to be the killer behind the Ghostface mask, working along with his best friend Stu Macher, played by Matthew Lillard. He and Stu studied for their killing spree by watching slasher movies, and they would have gotten away with it if Sidney and crack reporter Gale Weathers, played by Courteney Cox, hadn’t managed to take them down.

Speaking with EW during an interview for Scream’s 25th anniversary, Skeet Ulrich reminisced about accidentally taking the character way too seriously. Skeet says he “saw it as this very serious documentary about two killers in high school” and was taking his research and prep very seriously. When they started filming the famous scene where Sidney and her friends are discussing the murder of Casey Becker while sitting at the town fountain, he was annoyed by Matthew Lillard and Jamie Kennedy’s more comedic performances, thinking they didn’t get it at first. Read the full quote below:

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I think part of it was the mindset of Billy and me getting into that mindset. I saw it as this very serious documentary about two killers in high school and I was researching serial killers and the psychology of them, so I didn’t really key into the humor of the story until take one of day one.

[I saw Jamie Kennedy and Matthew Lillard performing more humorous moments. I just remember thinking, “What are they doing? Don’t they know?” Like, “This isn’t funny. This isn’t supposed to be funny.” And man, was I wrong,

It makes perfect sense why Ulrich would have misinterpreted the tone of Scream. He presumably already knew what character he would be playing before cracking open the screenplay so he knew he would be playing a teen killer. Also, Billy is the character who spouts the fewest jokes, so if he was focusing mainly on Billy’s dialogue, it’s entirely possible he viewed the film as a dark psychological study. However, spending more than two seconds with Matthew Lillard’s brilliant but cartoonish and over-the-top performance would clue anyone into the film’s comic elements.

Luckily, Ulrich realized his mistake right away, but he didn’t need to adjust his performance too far from his intentions. His portrayal of Billy is one of the iconic elements of Scream, and it likely wouldn’t have had the power that it does if he didn’t take the role seriously. Scream walks a delicate line with its whodunit, making Billy the most obvious suspect but continuously offering evidence to exonerate him, so his darker, more psychologically grounded performance works perfectly to keep fans guessing all the way to the end.

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Link Source : https://screenrant.com/scream-movie-skeet-ulrich-funny-production/

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