Scream star and Survivor Girl extraordinaire Willa Fitzgerald joins us to talk about season 2 and Emma’s dark future.
When Emma Duvall returned home after the deadly events that ended with her shooting the masked killer who had murdered so many of her friends, she was greeted with open arms by her fellow survivors, the Lakewood Six. It didn’t take long, however, for the blood to begin flowing once more, and we’ve already lost one of the main players in this fatal game.
Today, we’re chatting with Willa Fitzgerald, who plays Emma on MTV’s Scream. She speaks to the differences between season 1 and season 2, Emma’s relationship with her mother, and what’s in store for us this year.
How does season 2 feel differently from season 1?
Season 2 is definitely darker than season 1. The characters have matured after the events of last season. They are living with deep pain, mistrust and panic. They’re all trying to move on in their own ways, but that will obviously prove to be impossible.
Do you become numb to the characters and your friends leaving the show, or does it get harder each time?
Definitely not numb! It’s always so sad to see a character die. We’ve become a family over the past two years. We hang out together every weekend. It’s always upsetting when one of our number leaves.
Is there one character on the show that you would find most devastating to lose?
It would be really hard to lose my mom. There aren’t many familial relationships on this show, and yet Emma’s mother is the source of so much to the show’s mythology. It would be really strange to lose her.
Emma has been through a lot, and the writers are making her reaction to her trauma very realistic in the premiere. How dark is Emma’s storyline this year?
She’s definitely coming back to Lakewood with some deep fears, insecurities and unrealistic desires. She wants to be able to move on, to push away all that happened to her last year. But she’s definitely going to find that impossible to do, especially once she discovers that the killings are happening again. It’s all going to come to a head in a very dramatic way.
Emma’s past continues to haunt her, and in season 2 we just keep adding to the mystery of her childhood. How is that going to affect Emma, and particularly her relationship with her mother?
Emma has grown up during her time away from home. Her relationship with her mother is more distant than it was last season. There’s clearly leftover mistrust from all the secrets her mother kept from her last season. However, Emma will once again discover that her mother may be the only one who has the answers about their haunting past.
Speaking of relationships, Kieran was more than a little cold in the premiere. What can you tease us about him and Emma as a couple this season?
They are definitely trying to work their way toward a healthy relationship. However, after everything that happened last season, they are both coming into the relationship with a lot of baggage. There will definitely be some big ups and downs over the course of the season as they deal with issues of trust and communication.
What can you tell us about some of these new characters coming to the show in season 2?
Eli is a new mystery man in town, who makes quite the dramatic entrance. Emma is definitely intrigued by him because he’s so unlike all of the people in her life who survived last year’s murders. Zoe, similarly, wasn’t around for the killings of last year. There is something so refreshing for Emma in this. In trying to forget her past, she turns to these two newbies to move forward.
The showrunners have teased that this year is going to be a lot more insane than last year, especially when it comes to the different kills. Does that sort of thing make coming to work more exciting or more nerve-wracking, considering you know exactly what you’re going to run into on set?
It’s just so much fun to get to do all of the crazy stunts for this show. I’ve definitely come to set on my time off just to get to see all of the prosthetics and special effects rigs. This season’s killer is going about the murders in a much more vicious way, which definitely means more fun for our makeup and special effects teams.
Do you want Audrey to have been involved in the season 1 murders, or do you want her to be innocent? It’s a great twist, but Audrey is also a fan-favorite character!
I want her to be innocent. I feel like there’s still so much to explore in their relationship. I don’t want it to be over!
What can you tease us about the rest of ‘Scream’ season 2?
It is going to be a killer season.