Matthew Lillard reveals how he's back in 'Scream 7' — through telepathy

I'm particularly a big horror fan, to be clear

I see your spooky sweater. Like, the way I bought this and people were like

that'll be fun for Halloween. I'm like, you don't know me. This is January through December

Yeah, this is a year-round sweater. Just so you know, ghosts are around all the time

I don't know if that's true. I've had experience with a ghost. I don't want to. Have you ever had an experience with a ghost

I have not, but I have a deal with all ghosts. I believe them

I believe that they exist. I do not doubt them. They never need to prove themselves to me

Very that. For anyone I love. My wife was putting down our oldest daughter and going to sleep, putting her to sleep, not putting her down

She's still with us. You're very casual. Super clear, yeah. And Addison looked up and said, Mommy

And Heather said, yes, dear. I was like, who's that boy on the ceiling

No. That is a true story. And then you moved? Who's the boy on the ceiling

And I was like, roll him up. Let's go. I like to think that same thing

I think ghosts are like, she's got enough going on. We don't need to. We don't. Leave her be

Leave her be. I have theories. I know you're back in screen seven

I don't know how. I'm literally in four of the seven movies

Is it four? You hear your audio in three. You're in two in a background

One, two, five. I'm that silver-faced ghost killer. Right. And then seven

I am in seven. So I know you can't talk about spoilers right now

Right, tough. That'd be tough to do. It opens in... 30 seconds

Yeah, exactly. So instead, what I'm going to do is I'm going to pitch various fan theories, including some of my own

Oh, okay, yeah. And you don't have to answer. If you can just look me in the eye, and I will try to see if I can discern..

Okay, what the plot line is? Yeah, yeah. We're going to talk telepathically

And that way we don't break any of the rules. So I don't say anything. You don't have to say anything. Oh, I'll say so much, though

Watch this. Okay, ready. Go ahead, you begin. Okay, so one. One fan theory. Okay

Stu Macher never died he been in hiding and he coming back Halloween style for revenge Okay Theory two Okay yeah

You picked that whole thing up? I feel it was great. I think I got it. I feel like I got it

Okay, okay. You stammered a little, but I hear you. Let me stay with it. Okay, ready

Yeah, go. Theory two. Uh-huh. Stumacher is not coming back physically, but becomes a manifestation

either like Sydney's mom in three or like Billy Loomis in five and six

Ghosts, okay. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, okay. Pretty good, right

Okay, I'm more excited by the moment. Theory three. This is so dumb

Stumacher is not coming back. When did you actually get one of these right? Then we cut it to make it look like I'm a genius

Did I throw up on the couch? I'm like, whoa. And I'm like, she knew. You knew everything

Stumacher is not coming back, but he has an evil twin. or in this case a more evil twin

that's like you Sidney. He's not evil. Stu Mocker is not evil

See? Okay. Oh my God, that reminds me. I did want to ask you a question related to D&D and Stu Mocker

If Stu Mocker was a D&D character. He'd be a rogue. Go on

Yeah, he's just, he is, I don't know. He's always, he's out for himself, right

He's out for, he was in love with Billy Loomis. He's the first husband of horror

We didn't even talk about that. I know, I can't believe it. Why are we not doing a two-parter? Like, what is happening

You're letting me down. Like, why am I on this couch? Do we have time? How much time do you guys have

What's your heart out? We're a little tired. We're going to... Yes

We're the first-hours of the war. Looking at continuity. And so he's in love with Billy Loomis

And so he's like, we'll do anything for him. He's a sidekick

Yeah. That's the thing. Rewatching that movie, you're so funny the whole way through

But I feel like the problem I have with Scream, as much as I love the franchise, they can't ever beat the reveal of the killers in that one

Hard. And it's not just that it was like, oh my god, it's two. It's like the chemistry you two have

Because previously you kind of like chill and goofy with each other Right But there like such an intense chemistry in that And I curious of like were you aware of that in the room No I mean listen I have no idea what happened in the edit

I do know that the three of us sat there for weeks on end, covered in blood every single night

And we had set such a high level of energy at some point

That you had to keep meeting you. Guilty. that I think that we were then bound to meet that

for the next, whatever, 21 days or whatever that sequence was. Which, at the end of the day

ends up becoming a pretty iconic scene in horror. But a lot of that's Wes Craven

a lot of that's the commitment of the three of us, and a lot of us is just like

we got stuck really high, and then RPMs were just pinned. So there was really no way to ratchet it down

You can't like go bananas. Yeah. You know, what is it? Horrible

Horributes make more answers. Movies don't create psychos. Movies make psychos more creative

I've been feeling with you, all right? I can't take anymore. I'm feeling a wooshy air

Like, you know, we're just screaming at each other in the first opening sequence

And so like the whole time you're just, you have to be that high. Oh, it's so good

And it's like, I know you've talked about some of the lines in that, but like, I think part of what makes it so good is that it feels far less scripted than the rest of it

which, like, I love that movie. I'm not, that's not a critique, but, like, things like when you're like, you hit me with the phone, dick

I know you've said his improv. Yeah, yeah. But, like, what was it like finding those moments

Did you feel free to do that? I do think that, look, one of the great things about Wes Craven in that moment

was that he wanted it as written, and Kevin was there the whole time

like, they wanted it as written, and then they wanted, us to give options

And for me, what that meant is I would improv a lot. Sure. I improv the whole movie

Some of it stayed, some of it went, but they had the ability to sort of like go

okay, I love it, dad, I'm gonna be so funny. Ah! Us adding our idiosyncratic moments to these characters made the movie feel full Yeah Right And so to their credit they like we want that

And, you know, it doesn't always happen. I mean, so many of our great filmmakers are

like, that's not on the page. I don't want it. It's my vision of the movie or else. And the reality is that I think that's

personally, my opinion, is that you're discounting the fact that I've been an actor since I was

14 years old. You know, if You say to your DP, this is the exact shot I want

Well, your DP's been doing shots since he was 14 years old, right

Or she was 14 years old. So that you're just limiting the creative process

And to me, that creative process should be expansive, not throttled. You don't know what you're cutting off if you don't have those

Yes, and is so powerful in so many ways. We were at a con and somebody said, you're the first Husbands of Horror

And both of us sort of loved it. And now it's become a little more, right? It's become this idea of in the world we're living in, getting political for one second, there's like this, you know, that we are as others or as Americans, that we can be subjected to the right or this religious or righteousness from political entities

and the idea that Skeetal Rich and I can stand in front of people and say

we're these characters were gay you can't take it away from us

and if there's a queer kid out there somewhere in the world who sees us say

that and feels emboldened in their own journey then that's why we're doing it. I don't really

know if they're gay. It doesn't really matter to me. What matters

is that if some kid out there wants us to be gay, then we're gay. Right

Right? And this idea that, you know, it got a lot of blowback at some point about saying they're

the first husbands of horror. They're not. And there's plenty of examples of them before

But in this moment, it's really about, like, standing chest out saying you can't, there's

nothing you can say about it. Yeah. Yeah