Playing Scream’s first queer character is ‘a big deal’, says Yellowjackets’ Jasmin Savoy Brown
Jasmin Savoy Brown makes history as Mindy Meeks-Martin, the first openly queer character in the Scream film series. (YouTube/Paramount Pictures)
Scream star Jasmin Savoy Brown has opened up about the monumental impact of playing the film series’ first queer big-screen character.
Jasmin Savoy Brown, who rose to fame for her electric role in Showtime’s Yellowjackets, plays Mindy Meeks-Martin in the upcoming (and confusingly-titled) Scream.
The film, which comes 25 years after the 1996 original, sees a new killer take on the ghoulish mantle of Ghostface to terrorise the residents of Woodsboro.
Mindy is part of a new group of teens who join with some of the franchise’s original characters to stop Ghostface.
Brown told ET it was a “huge honour” to play Mindy, who is queer. She explained the role felt “so right” to her because she was able to bring a “version of myself” to the film.
“It just reflects who I am in my family life,” she said. “And so many actors get to do that with various pieces of their identity, whether it’s being straight or, fill in the blank.
She continued: “So, I’m being a version of myself on screen, in Scream.
“When I think about the impact, it is a big deal.”
MTV rebooted Scream into a TV series, which notably did include a few out LGBT+ characters and actors.
However, Jasmin Savoy Brown is the first out actor to play an openly queer character in the film series. A poster for Scream shows Brown’s character wearing an LGBT+ Pride pin on her shirt as she clutches the iconic Ghostface mask.
Brown felt “especially grateful” to be able to “bring myself to this project”. She shared that she even got to “collaborate on a lot of scenes” and “bring some of my wardrobe” to bring “Mindy’s identity to life”.
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In a separate interview with Digital Spy, Jasmin Savoy Brown said it was “very cool” and “exciting” any time she gets to “do any gay representation”.
“I thought: how lovely that I get to celebrate every piece of my identity, you know, as a woman of colour,” Brown said.
She also joked in the interview that her Scream character Mindy Meeks-Martin has a decided “lesbo haircut”, which she thought was really the “most important” thing to highlight.
“It’s quite funny, because it is quite a gay haircut, and that’s the most important thing, to show off the different hairstyles that us homosexuals enjoy,” Brown said.
Jasmin Savoy Brown attends Vulture Festival 2021 at The Hollywood Roosevelt on 13 November 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Getty/David Livingston)
Scream icon Neve Campbell recently hinted that there might be some truth behind the fan theory that the film’s characters Billy (Skeet Ulrich) and Stu (Matthew Lillard) were secretly gay.
Campbell, who plays Sidney Prescott, said the potential romance was “very much a possibility” as the franchise’s screenwriting Kevin Williamson is “out and talking more about that”.
“Well, I don’t know clearly, ’cause Kevin hasn’t said to me clearly that’s what it is, but it is a possibility, right?” Campbell said.
But Campbell believed there was “some confusion” between the two characters. She theorised that “some of their anger” could come from “not being allowed to be who they want to be”.
Scream comes out in theatres on 14 January.
