I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again -- the Fear Street films are instant horror classics. Years from now, I'm willing to bet I'll be re-watching them often as I do with OGs like Scream, Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street, just to name a few. As a huge genre fan herself, it’s got to be such a thrill for Olivia Scott Welch to be part of a series of horror films that struck a chord with so many and, in my book at least, are some of the very best horror releases in recent years.
In addition to the success of Fear Street, Welch recently got to geek out over her love of genre in another way. She got the opportunity to audition for two horror series that have been around for decades and essentially paved the way to what the team was able to deliver in Fear Street.
Turns out, Welch submitted an audition for the 2022 Scream film and she was kind enough to walk me through the process on Collider Ladies Night. Not only was I thrilled to hear about what it’s like to audition for a Scream film -- especially for a diehard fan of the franchise to do so -- but I was also mighty delighted to hear that Welch worked on her audition with another Fear Street standout:
“I did it during COVID. I did my tape with Fred Hechinger. He FaceTimed me. Fred and I did all of our tapes together all of quarantine, and he was in New York City and I was in Texas with my family. So we would do our tapes at like three in the morning and we would FaceTime each other once our families had gone to bed and I would be in my dining room with a ring light set up and then I would FaceTime him on my computer and I would tape it in and he would read my auditions with me and I’d read his with him. It was really fun! We were talking about it the other day. We were like, ‘What a sweet time for us to have done something so fun together!’”
Of course things didn’t pan out for Welch with Scream, but it’s easy to get behind her positive outlook on the experience:
“I think I maybe did like two auditions for it. I didn’t do very many, but it was one of those things where I was like, ‘Just the opportunity!’ But it was. I was like, just to even get an audition for a Scream movie and know that it’s getting made, and I love those directors so much and I trust their casting and their filmmaking and I’m very excited to see it.”
As for the sides she auditioned with, it probably won’t come as a surprise to learn that there wasn’t much about the actual events of the film in them. The Scream franchise is known for giving out script variations to keep the biggest reveals top script, so when it comes to audition sides, you certainly won’t find any plot clues in them. Welch explained:
“They were very ambiguous. They weren’t really about anything. I don’t even remember. They were just like three people and they were talking about picking up food or something like that. It was very, very nonchalant.”
Turns out, Scream 2022 isn’t the only continuation of an iconic franchise Welch auditioned for. She also got the chance to read for David Gordon Green’s Halloween as well:
“It’s fun getting the fake movies, because I auditioned for Halloween too, and I remember my audition for Halloween was like the most generic. It was like, ‘Anna and John talking about babysitting,’ and I was like, ‘What movie is this?’ I was like, ‘Is this Halloween?’ And the casting director was like, ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’ And I was like, ‘Tell me! Is it? I know it is!’ I was like, ‘I know it is. I know David Gordon Green’s directing this movie. Tell me that it’s Halloween!’”
If you give Welch secret sides for a horror movie audition, she will figure it out! But when it comes to Scream 5 theories and pinpointing where Radio Silence might take the franchise, Welch is just as in the dark as the rest of us:
“I have no idea! Because my audition, it was under a fake name and so I remember reading Deadline articles about it and it being like, ‘It’s Scream 5 and the three are coming back.’ And I was like, ‘Sick! This is gonna be awesome.’ And then it was a thing where it’s like, ‘It’s not a sequel. It’s a reimagining.’ And I was like, ‘Well, this could mean anything!’ Then why are David [Arquette], Courteney [Cox] and Neve [Campbell] coming back? So many questions! I have no theories. I’ve thought about it and I won’t be able to crack this.”
Before winding down the Scream portion of our Ladies Night chat, I absolutely had to ask for Welch’s personal ranking of the existing Scream films. Here’s where she stands:
“Man, I don’t know because I really love the second one, too. The scene where they’re practicing the play and it’s the strobes and the masks and he [appears], that’s one of my favorite horror movie scenes ever. I might go one, two, four, three, but I really love four and I really love three! And I think four is super underrated!”
If you’re looking for even more from Welch, you’re going to want to check out the uncut version of our Collider Ladies Night conversation in podcast form below. We discussed some of her earliest gigs like Agent Carter and Modern Family, what it was like doing her first Fear Street chemistry read with Kiana Madeira, why she’s grateful to have filmed Fear Street before the Amazon Prime series Panic, and so much more!