The Big Picture

• Laurie Metcalf praised Kevin Williamson for creating such a complex character in Scream 2, allowing her to play two separate roles with ease.
• The iconic twist revealing Metcalf's character as the mother of Billy Loomis in Scream 2 was a surprise to audiences and a highlight for the actress.
• Metcalf felt grateful for the recognition she received for her role in Scream 2, celebrating the unique reveal of her character in the film.

Over the weekend at the Calgary Expo, Roseanne star, four-time Emmy winner, and Academy Award-nominated actress, Laurie Metcalf was feeling the gratitude. Taking the stage with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff, the actress spoke about her genre-crossing roles on stage and screen as well as which titles fans recognize her from that cause her the most surprise. Of all the movies in her repertoire, Metcalf is thankful that she’s still receiving recognition for her role in 1997’s Scream 2, in which she played a news anchor named Debbie Salt who was secretly Nancy Loomis, the vengeance-driven mother of Scream co-killer, Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich). During their chat, Nemiroff asked Metcalf how she masterfully switched back and forth between characters and if either of the women changed drastically from her first reading.

“That was all on the page,” Metcalf explained, praising writer and franchise creator, Kevin Williamson, for coming up with such a complex character. Walking the audience through her process as the performer, Metcalf said,

“I mean all I had to do was — I guess I just sort of, in my head, split her apart and Debbie Salt, I just played as a villain. And then Nancy, I played as a rabid mother avenging her son. They were very separate in my head… There was no overlap… If you’re good at playing the lunatic, you basically, as an actor, you have a free pass to be as crazy as you want to be.”

'Scream 2's Iconic Twist Ending

For those who may have forgotten or those who don't mind spoilers for a 27-year-old movie, Metcalf’s Loomis is just one-half of the killing duo in the sequel slasher flick. Metcalf was joined by Timothy Olyphant’s Mickey Altieri, a film student and friend of Sidney’s (Neve Campbell) at university. Giving Debbie Salt the old switcheroo and revealing at the last second that she’s in fact not a news anchor at all but the mother of Billy Loomis was a twist that no one saw coming. Metcalf is proud of the way things shook out for her, adding, “I think in the Scream movies, my character has the best reveal.” On a more heartfelt note, Metcalf also shared the fun fact that seeing Campbell and the rest of the Scream family over the weekend at the Calgary Expo was the first time she had been in the same room as them since wrapping the production nearly 30 years ago.

Stay tuned to Collider for more from the Calgary Expo and relive Metcalf’s iconic performance in Scream 2 with the movie now streaming on Max.

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