Olivia Scott Welch is having quite the year. Not only did she headline the Amazon series Panic, but she’s also part of the cast of one of the biggest releases of 2021, Netflix’s Fear Street trilogy. Welch first appears in Fear Street 1994 as Sam, a high school student who finds herself right smack in the middle of the Shadyside curse. Then, in Fear Street 1666, Welch plays Hannah Miller, the local pastor’s daughter who’s accused of witchcraft alongside Sarah Fier (Kiana Madeira).
It’s a phenomenal trilogy that celebrates genre through the years while also delivering a powerful narrative about being labeled an outcast and introducing the world to a downright stellar ensemble of young stars who are bound to continue to deliver big in film and television realm - Welch included.
With the expectation that Fear Street enthusiasm will remain sky high - yes, I’m one of the ones happy to call the films instant classics mere weeks after release - having the two stars of the films on Collider Ladies Night was an absolute must. We shared the conversation with Madeira a couple of weeks back and now it’s time to put Welch in the Ladies Night spotlight.
Even though Panic was the first of the two productions to become available, Welch actually shot the Fear Street films first and, looking back, she’s mighty glad things panned out that way. Here’s how she described one of the biggest lessons learned making Fear Street:
“Fear Street was long, because we filmed them all at one time. And so it definitely was a lesson in pacing myself and self-preservation as a person and an actor so that you could be healthy enough to go and to perform for so many hours of the day.”
While long days and many overnight shoots can be extremely challenging, there was one thing in particular that made working those hours on Fear Street easier than Panic — the constant company. Welch explained:
“It was easier too because it was all of us, all the time. Rarely was one of us singled off to do work alone, or even in a pairing. Kiana had a little bit more by herself and then there were times where it would be just Kiana and I, or just Kiana and Benji and I. But with Panic, it filmed for even longer and there was so much that I did by myself. And so I feel very lucky that Fear Street went first because I learned all those lessons and what mistakes I made, and taking care of myself, that I didn’t necessarily make on Panic to where I was able to sustain energy for a lot longer. Because I think if I hadn’t done Fear Street first, on Panic I would have been a mess.”
The important lessons learned don’t stop there. Welch also credits Fear Street director Leigh Janiak with giving her the guidance necessary to know how best to speak up and ask for further direction. Here’s how Welch put it:
“[Leigh is] very direct about what she wants. She gives you a very direct note and if you don’t understand it, she’s very willing to discuss it with you. And she’s good about checking in on if things make sense and stuff. And so I think it was a thing where before, a director would tell me something and I’d be like, ‘Got it!’ And I would just try to be like, [out of] respect to the director, I’ll just try to figure this out in my brain. But she really made the space for everybody to be like, ‘What do you mean? I don’t necessarily agree, but let’s discuss this,’ in a very quick and respectful way that was very efficient, which is something that I appreciate working because I like the pace of things going quickly and she’s really good at telling you exactly what she needs and discussing it with you in a very efficient and effective way. So I feel like that made me better on Panic and stuff about having the space to be like, ‘I don’t quite understand what you mean. Can we talk about this super quick? Because I just need a little bit more of an explainer and I know I can figure it out.’ But she’s great. She really taught all of us that that was something that was okay to do, and how to do it in a way that wasn’t so time consuming, and more constructive than it was destructive to the project.”
Welch is rocking a whole lot of momentum right now in her acting career, but she’s also got ambitions to explore other areas of filmmaking:
“I really feel passionately about production and I would love to move into being a producer and producing a lot of things, because it’s just something that makes so much sense in my brain. And I do, I feel like I have all this behind the scenes knowledge and I’m like, I can’t wait to put this somewhere and channel it into something productive and actually get something made. But yeah, I would love to direct and I would love to produce - and just really do anything!”
Welch is already putting that behind-the-scene enthusiasm to good use, serving as set dresser on Fear Street co-star Ryan Simpkin’s short film, Nineteen on Fire. When asked if the plan is for the Fear Street cast to continue making content together, Welch said:
“We’re all so close and we all constantly are trying to be in the same place and always want to keep making things together, so I feel like we probably will. Because all of us are just really close and I feel like there’s just such a respect to each other as artists, which I think is so cool.”
Eager to hear even more from Welch? We’ve got you covered with this new edition of Collider Ladies Night! You can catch the video version of the episode at the top of this article or check out the uncut conversation in podcast form below to hear more about Welch’s earliest sources of inspiration, how it felt when her Nickelodeon pilot, The Dunes Club, didn’t get picked up, what it was like doing her first chemistry read with Madeira and so much more!