Thirty years after Scream hit theaters, we sat down with Billy Loomis himself to hear about the intense finale shoot, working with Wes Craven, and his chemistry with Matthew Lillard.

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Walking into the venue in downtown Manhattan felt like walking straight into a video store from the '90s. It took me right back to the good ol' days of Friday nights at Blockbuster, checking to see if the Star Wars original trilogy was available to rent.

After perusing the different Scream-themed Angry Orchard flavors, I sat down with the man of the hour. During our ten-minute chat, Skeet opened up about his chemistry with Matthew Lillard, the intense shoot for the film's climactic finale, the specific direction Wes Craven gave him for Billy, and what he wishes he could tell his 26-year-old self 30 years later.

Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Skeet: They had started with the Drew Barrymore sequence. That took a couple of weeks, and we were all there a bit before that for things like wardrobe fittings. This was in Napa Valley, California, wine country, and we really got to know each other by getting together at the hotel. 

David Arquette built a bar in his room, and we rode go-karts — we did all kinds of crazy stuff that you would expect us to do in our twenties. We really got to know each other outside of the set, and we all clicked so quickly. And obviously, relationships developed out of how well people clicked.

My first day on set, if I remember correctly, was the fountain scene. It's the scene where Jamie Kennedy [Randy] is harassing us about the murder of Casey and Steve. That was our first day, and it was wild. 

Wes [Craven] just had a vision so early on, as did [screenwriter] Kevin Williamson, that we discussed daily and tried to live up to.

Skeet: The goal was to really lean into it being way too obvious that Billy was the bad guy. This way, when he gets "stabbed" by Ghostface, it's a shock, and you're thinking, Oh my God, I thought he was the killer. Now the killer's dead.

We really leaned into Billy's darker side and the notions of his past. It haunted him every day, and yet he had to plead innocent to keep doing what he was doing.

Skeet: The direction from Wes that I remember most vividly is the scene where Sidney and Billy are about to consummate their relationship upstairs at Stu's party.

We rehearsed the scene a couple of times, and Wes just came over and said, "Think about how much Billy hates his mother, and how that skews relationships for him." It unlocked this other side of Billy that I hadn't figured out yet.

Skeet: My most vivid memory of the finale is that it took us weeks to shoot that ending sequence. It was a journey. We were at an emotional 12 on a scale of 10 each day.

I was big into industrial music in my teens and 20s, so I listened to Skinny Puppy and Ministry and Sisters of Mercy and Front 242 — you name it. I would walk the set with their mentality in my eardrums, and then just try to keep the energy up.

Skeet: I've had open heart surgery, and I had a pad on my chest for safety, because that part is very sensitive to me. We had bandaged a pad under my shirt that Neve was supposed to hit. When she came out of the closet and hit me with the umbrella, she missed and hit right above it.

I mean, I didn't bleed; we didn't need the medic or anything, but it definitely was a wake-up call. (Laughs) It was a genuine reaction, and I'm pretty sure it's the one Wes used.

Skeet: I remember our chemistry happening in the moment. It's been so long — but I don't remember us sort of "plotting" anything.

I think that's the thing about good actors (laughs), and I guess I'll put myself in that category for this statement. When you put them together, they play off each other's energies, and chemistry develops in the now. That's why a lot of great filmmakers live in two-shots and wides, because they know that on your own, there is no chemistry. When you have two actors who are really able to work off of each other, it can be electric.

A great improvised moment came from Matthew. In the ending sequence, I didn't mean to hit him with the phone — the fake blood was so sticky. I meant to throw the phone, but it went in a direction I didn't intend. That's where his ad-lib came from, "You hit me with the phone!"

Skeet: I think I would tell myself to relax. I would tell him Scream is going to be a big hit for a long, long time. When you're doing a project, you never know whether people will even see it, especially nowadays.

It was certainly on our minds. Horror had not had a hit in a while. Wes was sort of waiting on his next hit, and Miramax had shut down production in the beginning. They weren't real sure what direction it was going, and Wes had to cut stuff together to get them to let us continue filming. We were protected from all that until after, but yeah, I think I would have just told myself to relax more.

Skeet: I wish our whole cast were here at this event today — especially Jamie Kennedy and Matt Lillard. We could have reenacted our scene in the video store.

It's incredible what Angry Orchard did, in their commitment to our franchise as much as their own. It's really an honor to be a part of, and it brings back a lot of memories.

I wish we could get back to the socialization of just going to a video store, finding a movie, and talking with people. Just having conversations, waiting at the bin, and asking, "Hey, is that Shawshank Redemption?" or whatever you wanted to see.

So this is really special. It's really amazing.

Check out the Scream x Angry Orchard collab, available through October 2026.