Marley Shelton reprises her role as Scream 4 character Judy Hicks in the new Scream, but with some noticeable changes now over ten years later. She’s now the Sheriff of Woodsboro and also happens to be the mother of a teen son, Wes (Dylan Minnette).
Ahead of the January 14 theatrical release of Scream, Shelton and Minnette chatted with Bloody Disgusting about how Judy’s role as Sheriff factors into their characters, how she’s evolved since the events of Scream 4, and even if Wes might be a fan of Judy’s lemon bars.
“A lot of it was already plotted out, with her promotion to sheriff, and obviously that she has this adorable 16 year old son,” Shelton explained Judy’s return to us. “So that evolution was already written in. And then it was trying to bridge that and fill in… well, what’s transpired for Judy since we last saw her, to bring her to these places. Ya know, it’s a little curious that she’s a single mom, we don’t really quite know why. There’s still a lot of mystery around Judy. She has this very intense… helicopter mom, protective relationship with her son. In this one we get to see Judy off duty… which we never got to see before. So we were kind of trying to fill in those little details. What is Judy like when she’s not in uber cop mode?”
“[Wes] really respects his mom, and what she does,” Minnette chimes in, describing his new character in the new movie. “And he takes on her helicopter parenting; he wants to protect his friends. He’s kind of ultimately an easy punching bag for the friends, because he’s being extra careful. I feel like it was easy to play the scaredy cat kind of character.”
You can watch our interview with Shelton and Minnette below.
Scream is directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett, and executive produced by Chad Villella, the three members of the filmmaking group Radio Silence (Ready or Not, V/H/S, Southbound). In the new movie…
“Twenty-five years after a streak of brutal murders shocked the quiet town of Woodsboro, a new killer has donned the Ghostface mask and begins targeting a group of teenagers to resurrect secrets from the town’s deadly past.”
James Vanderbilt (Murder Mystery, Zodiac, The Amazing Spider-Man) and Guy Busick (Ready or Not, Castle Rock) wrote the script. Michel Aller served as the editor for the film.