[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Scream VI.]

Ready to discuss one of the biggest spoilers of Scream VI? If you scrolled past that initial spoiler warning I hope so because we’re about to dig into the casting and identity of one of the sixth installment’s Ghostface killers, Liana Liberato’s Quinn Bailey.

During a recent Collider Ladies Night Pre-Party interview, we recapped some of Liberato’s journey in film and television thus far but, of course, left ample time to talk about how one becomes a Scream killer and how Liberato fleshed out Quinn’s world.

As revealed in the film’s third act set piece, Scream VI had not one, not two, but three killers. The number alone makes the reveal wow-worthy given it’s a franchise first, but writers Jamie Vanderbilt and Guy Busick opted to kick it up another notch by making these killers related to a past killer. Quinn, her brother Ethan (Jack Champion), and their father Wayne (Dermot Mulroney) are actually Richie Kirsch’s (Jack Quaid) family, and they’re out to make Sam (Melissa Barrera) pay for stabbing their brother and son 22 times at the end of Scream 2022.

Wondering how exactly one scores the role of a Ghostface killer in a Scream movie? Liberato walked us through the entire process beginning with her very first audition tape. A tape that she didn’t even know was being considered for Scream VI. Here’s how she put it:

“I didn't even know I was auditioning for Scream VI. I had no idea. [Laughs] I didn’t know anything. I was about to go leave the country to go to a friend's wedding and I got a very short two-page audition for an untitled Paramount/Spyglass movie. The character was very sassy and funny, and I was like, ‘Okay, I don't know what this is, but sure, let me tape it really quick before I leave.’”

The next step? The project reveal -- and also more confusion. Liberato continued:

“I was in London a few weeks later and I got an email saying, ‘Hey, you have a meeting with [directors] Matt [Bettinelli-Olpin] and Tyler [Gillett] for Scream VI.' And I was like, ‘When did I audition for Scream VI?’ [Laughs] And they were like, ‘Oh, that audition you sent in.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, okay! Great!’ They gave me some additional sides which was really exciting for me because it was sort of like a spliced up version of Richie and Amber's monologue in 5, and I was like, ‘Wait, does this mean that I'm the killer? What does this mean?’ And they're like, ‘No, everybody's reading as this character, along with your original sides.’ I was really nervous because I was out of the country and I had to reschedule and that's the last thing you want to do is reschedule on the Scream VI crew. Luckily they were accommodating.”

That audition gave Liberato the opportunity to do something she isn’t often sought out for in film and television — to play a villain.

“Whether or not I was the killer, I was just excited to perform that scene because I feel like I don't get that opportunity a lot as someone who has a very sweet face. I just don't look like a mean person or an evil person. And so I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, fun!’ I get to exercise this — it's just gonna be really cool. I was a huge fan of Scream 5. I saw it in the theater when it came out and I was like, 'How do I do something different here? How can I play and make this unique,’ and so that was really fun. And they were lovely! They didn't have any notes for me. Both of their little faces were in the Zoom screen and they were nodding, and they're like, ‘Okay, great!' And I was like, ‘Alright!’ I hung up and I remember writing on my sides, 'I booked Scream VI,’ because I just felt it.”

Sure enough, Liberato’s gut was right. “I went through one excruciating week of waiting, and I got the job, and I just sobbed my eyes out.”

Her Scream VI casting high was dulled a bit when she received the first two acts of the screenplay and came to learn her character doesn’t make it very far — or so she thought.

“I got the first two acts of the movie, and my character dies in it. I remember being a little bummed because I was like, 'Dang, really if you're in a Scream movie, all you want is to be the killer, be the final girl or have an epic, epic kill,’ you know? Those are the goals. And I was like, ‘Dang, I don't really get any of that. That's a bummer.’ But I was like, ‘That doesn’t matter. I'm just so excited to be a part of it and be in it.’”

Things took yet another turn when Liberato finally found out (some of) the truth about her role in her costume fitting. She recalled:

“I had tried on all of my clothes and they were about to send me away, and then they brought Matt and Tyler in on Zoom, and they were like, ‘Hey, we actually have one more outfit for you to try on,’ and they brought out the Ghostface outfit. I can't imagine what my face looked like. I was like, ‘What? What do you mean? I'm dead!’ They’re like, ‘Yeah, you're not dead. Surprise!’ And I got to try it on. It was so cool.”

So that’s one big piece of the puzzle right there, but what about her character’s motive? Turns out, that remained a mystery for Liberato until she was on set for filming.

“It was only [when] I arrived on set when I got to sit down with Matt and Tyler and be like, ‘Can you break this down for me? What's happening here? How do I die? Why do I want to kill everybody? What's happening?’ And then Matt and Tyler explained everything to me, which was so fun. And it was cool! It was kind of strange because I was literally going into that scene with Jenna [Ortega] where I talk about when my brother died, my dad went into the NYPD, and I was like, ‘Really glad I know this before going into the scene minutes away from filming it.' But it was really exciting to just be thrown that curveball, and immediately we got to play with that. We got to do so many different versions of my lines in that scene, and it was cool getting to see what they chose from that.”

After revisiting the casting process, Liberato indulged my backstory obsession by offering up a little insight into what life was like in the Bailey family pre-Scream 2022 bloodbath.

“We all kind of talked about it a little bit, and then also with the help of Dermot's wild imagination, it was really fun that we kind of did get to build that world a little bit. I was trying to think just about Quinn's personal motive, and I kind of assumed I was probably the middle child, Richie being the oldest, me being in the middle and then Ethan being the youngest, and I would like to think that Quinn really looked up to Richie, and was a bit of a protector. It was a really big goal of mine to not come across too crazy in the reveal. I really wanted Quinn's anger to be driven by an immense amount of pain and love for her brother, and this feeling of, my sole goal is to now protect my family the way that Richie took care of me. I was trying to find a sense of human-ness because there isn't a lot when it comes to Ghostface killers.”

Liberato also recalled a particular line that Mulroney improvised during filming that became a personal favorite.

“One of my favorite lines that Dermot improvised is, ‘There's nothing like a father's love for his first son,’ which makes me laugh every time because it cuts to Ethan and Ethan’s like, damn. [Laughs] But it's such a good line! But that alone kind of lays a foundation of the type of family or the type of dynamic we were in as a family, so that was fun to play with too.”

So there’s Wayne and his two children, Quinn and Ethan, but what about Mrs. Bailey? Do they have a mother and is she in the picture? You won’t believe the twisted Mrs. Bailey concept that wound up getting cut from the film. Liberato revealed:

"There was talk of mom that didn't make it in the film. I think there was a few lines of us — well not me, but Ethan sort of helping [Detective] Bailey with the death of our mother because she didn't agree with things. [Laughs] And that was cut! That was something. That line always made me giggle while we were filming because I was like, ‘That's insane. I can't believe we killed our mother.’ And Dermot was so funny because I'm the only one who has red hair in the family, and so he would always say that Nicole Kidman was our mother. And he was like, ‘Oh Nicole, so tall, so beautiful.’ He’d just riff off these crazy lines. But, I mean, based off of the original script I read, mom is not in the picture. Mom did not make it to the party.”

Mom didn’t make it to the party and Wayne, Ethan, and Quinn didn’t make it out of the party, but what if Quinn had? If Quinn had succeeded and survived, would she just have returned to normal everyday life from there? Here’s Liberato's take:

“I would like to think that Quinn was genuinely fueled by revenge and wanting to get back at Sam. So I would say that maybe she’d try to get out of it. She’d try to start a new identity and be free of it if she were to have avenged her brother's death. But also as an actor, of course, my brain's going all over the place. There's some craziness in her and there's a really impressive sense of drive in her as well. So who knows? She could be looking for the rest of her life for ways to avenge her family. So yeah, I think it could go either way.”

Looking for even more on Liberato’s Scream VI experience and her journey in Hollywood thus far? Be sure to watch our full Collider Ladies Night Pre-Party interview at the top of this article, or you can listen to the conversation in podcast form below: