Goodbye, ghostface.
Dermot Mulroney is breaking his silence on his “Scream” co-stars Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega exiting the franchise.
“I’m not surprised they didn’t come back,” Mulroney, 61, exclusively told the Post while promoting his latest project, “Depravity.”
Barrera, 34, was fired from the horror movie films due to her social media posts about the Israel-Hamas war.
“I too come from a colonized country,” she wrote beside a Mexican flag logo in Oct. 2023. “Palestine WILL be free. They tried to bury us, they didn’t know we were seeds. At the end of the day, I’d rather be excluded for who I include, than be included for who I exclude.”
The following month, it was reported that Ortega, 22, dropped out of “Scream VII” due to scheduling conflicts with Netflix’s Season 2 of “Wednesday.”
The actors played sisters Sam and Tara Carpenter, respectively, in “Scream” (2022) and “Scream VI” (2023).
In Nov. 2023, “Scream 7” director Christopher Landon briefly reacted to the casting shakeup via X, writing: “Everything sucks. Stop yelling. This was not my decision to make.” Lead star Neve Campbell opted out of the 2023 flick over salary negotiations, but will return for the next installment.
“‘Scream’ has had a lot of ups and downs since since ‘Scream VII’ and how the company treated Melissa Barrera and then flip side, Nev’s back in her character Sidney Prescott,” Mulroney told the Post.
“So those ‘Scream’ people who have rode out all that’s gone on — not just in the last couple of years, but for the last 25 years with this storyline. I’m so grateful to be a part of it. It’s way more powerful than I ever thought. It binds families together. The horror viewer follower-ship fan scape is so powerful that I know more and more from being part of ‘Scream.’”
The “Anyone But You” actor played Detective Bailey in “Scream VI.” More recently, he stars in the Paul Tamasy-directed “Depravity,” where three residents suspect their reclusive neighbor (Mulroney) is a serial killer.
“[This] was such a challenge. There’s almost no dialog, of course, and I got to get it all across non-verbally and by the tools that cinema uses, framing and lighting and music and and that vibe,” Mulroney explained. “I’m so happy to have been a part of it. … It wound up being not that many filming days for me. We had an incredible time filming it in Bangkok, Thailand, at this wild studio in this wild building. So it was an incredibly memorable experience for me, especially with the people.”
“I guess until recently, these roles would have been less less likely to come my way. So whatever is ticked on the graph, I’m sure my age had to do it,” he went on. “‘Scream 6,’ of course, playing Detective Bailey has become rather iconic.”
“I always try to choose those roles because maybe because they’re not like how I feel in real life. That’s half the fun, half the time.”
The “Family Stone” actor praised director Paul Tamasy.
“Even that long coat. Of course I was involved in choosing which of those fit best and were best for the character, but that the haircut was written in the script,” he went on about his character’s wardrobe. That was Paul the director’s concept from the beginning. So I’d love to take credit for that awesome idea of giving across this really hard edged image, just even the way light plays on a person with an extreme haircut. … It’s not that often that I’ve been photographed that way. So it really gives the movie a great edge and offers all up to the cinema of it how this character was introduced and how it built without saying a word. Just the other characters point of view of him and what was going on down the hall.”
Mulroney can also now be seen in “Chicago Fire.” The star joined the NBC procedural drama as Chief Dom Pascal for Season 13. Filming in the Windy City was a homecoming for the actor, who worked in the same location on 1997’s “My Best Friend’s Wedding.”
“I’m seeing places where we shot some of those iconic scenes,” he told the Post of the rom-com, which also starred Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz. “They still have the very same boats floating under the bridges, pointing out the architecture. It’s such a beautiful city. I worked [there] on ‘Shameless.’ And so the city really has been so kind to me and amazing to return now for ‘Chicago Fire.’ That whole Chicago One grouping of shows is amazing. I have friends on each of those shows that I knew already, so it is really like coming home to Chicago. I’m thrilled that I got this job.”
