The franchise is rife with recognizable actors silently lurking in the background just like the Ghostface Killer himself, and re-watching the movies can lead to some pleasant surprises. Some of the most influential slasher films around, the Scream series has mastered the art of weaponizing celebrity actors for brief appearances ever since Drew Barrymore was shockingly killed off in the opening moments of the original 1996 classic. Since then, the franchise has swelled to include all sorts of familiar faces that are shockingly easy to forget.
Famous actors that can somehow go unremembered throughout the Scream series hide their presence in a multitude of ways. The appearances of some performers are so brief and so long ago in the canon of Scream movies that it can be frighteningly easy to forget they were ever there. Other times, character actors with familiar faces that tease recognition on the tip of the tongue can lurk in the foreground, being vaguely remembered for other work but hard to place. Either way, most Scream movies feature at least one easy-to-forget star.
Like most directors, Wes Craven is certainly willing to partake in the time-honored tradition of making a cameo in his own film as a minor background character. In Scream, Wes Craven makes a snapshot appearance as Fred the Janitor, a blink-and-you'll-miss-him character briefly seen swabbing the floors of Woodsboro High School. True to his name, Fred's striped sweater and fedora are a clear reference to Wes Craven's infamous slasher villain Freddy Krueger, a supernatural serial killer with a claw-tipped glove who kills people by invading their nightmares.
The horror movies of Wes Craven cement his place as one of the most iconic names in the genre to ever do it, more than earning him a small nod to his most well-known character. Craven would go on to star in additional small cameo roles in subsequent Scream movies, including a doctor in Scream 2, a videographer in Scream 3, and a coroner in a deleted scene in Scream 4. Few realize that Craven contributed to the franchise beyond his work as a director.
Of course, being a love-letter to the horror genre as a whole, it's no wonder that Wes Craven is far from the only horror icon to get a cameo appearance in the original Scream. Blair is credited as "Obnoxious Reporter" in 1996's Scream, a fitting title for her character who tactlessly asks Sidney Prescott how it feels to be brutally butchered. Underneath her audacious black-and-white tiger-print outfit, it's difficult to even realize it's her.
Linda Blair is most well-known for her child role as the demon-possessed Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist franchise. It's only fitting that she is given a nod in Scream, even if she's less recognizable as an adult. It's a shame Blair doesn't have as many notable roles later in her career, as her clear talent in even such a brief scene stands out. That being said, it's certainly still not easy to place her for the uninitiated.
One of the best parts of the Scream franchise is just how meta it can get, openly referring to and playing with common slasher movie tropes in real-time as they happen. The presence of the Stab movies, a film-within-a-film series that canonically exists within the Scream universe based off the actual exploits of the Ghostface Killer. The opening scene of Scream 4 sees Kristen Bell cast as Chloe, the 7th Ghostface Killer of the Stab franchise.
Kristen Bell first rose to fame thanks to her time on TV as the titular plucky protagonist of Verionica Mars. In more recent years, she wowed TV audiences again as Arizona scumbag Eleanor Shellstrop, the charmingly sleazy protagonist of the supernatural sitcom The Good Place. Confusingly enough, in Scream 4, it's revealed that the previous Stab movies also exist in the universe of Stab 7, making them a film-within-a-film-within-a-film. With all those narrative hoops to jump through, it's no wonder Bell is so easy to forget amid Scream 4's cast.
The Stab movies represented a chance for the Scream franchise to squeeze in some brief appearances by well-known actresses long before Scream 4, with the concept of them first appearing as early as Scream 2. Scream 2 parodies the opening scene of its predecessor by showing the first Stab film's adaptation of the Ghostface Killer murder of Casey Becker that started it all. The Stab adaptation of Casey Becker is played by Heather Graham in an easy-to-miss performance.
As an actress, Graham has quite the versatile portfolio, appearing in comedies like The Hangover, Bowfinger, and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. She's also something of a TV character darling, appearing in supporting roles in shows like Twin Peaks, Scrubs, and Californication. Graham might not quite be a household name, but she's certainly a familiar face, even if viewers of the Scream franchise aren't able to immediately place where they know her from.
Another prominent actor to appear as a minor character in the Scream franchise is Patrick Warburton as Steven Stone. In Scream 3, Stone acts as the bodyguard of Jennifer Jolie, a rising star in the Scream universe's Hollywood circuit thanks to her success in the Stab movies. Stone is the fourth person to be killed by the Ghostface of Scream 3, taken out while patrolling the perimeter of Jolie's house.
Patrick Warburton is better known for his iconic voice rather than his face, with some of his most famous characters being Kronk from The Emperor's New Groove and Joe from Family Guy. Beyond that, Warburton's animated credits are impressively numerous, from The Batman to The Bee Movie. But Warburton is no stranger to live-action acting either, playing both the eccentric titular hero of The Tick and David Puddy on Seinfeld. Even for those that might know his face rather than his voice, he's hard to recognize under his shades in Scream 3.
Scream famously shocked audiences by wantonly killing off Drew Barrymore's character in the famous opening scene, a bold and shocking move at the time due to Barrymore's popularity. Scream 2 would pull a similar trick by killing off none other than Sarah Michelle Gellar, who stars as Casey "Cici" Cooper. Cici is a freshman film major at Windsor College who is the third to die by the new Ghostface Killer's hand, murdered while on "sober sister" duty.
Sarah Michelle Gellar won over TV audience's hearts for years as the titular killer of the undead in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a widely-beloved and long-running supernatural high-school drama series. Funnily enough, Gellar has few degrees of separation from the Scream franchise, with her husband, Freddie Prinze Jr., being referenced in Scream 3, and her Scooby-Doo co-star, Matthew Lillard, played one of the original Ghostface Killers. Sarah herself is also referenced as an actress later on in Scream 3, as well.
One of the more famous names easily forgotten as having taken part in the Scream franchise is Carrie Fisher, yet another famous star hidden within the busy cast of Scream 3. Fisher plays Bianca Burnette, an archivist and former actress who works at Sunrise Studios in Los Angeles, California. Bianca bemoans the fact that she was almost cast as Princess Leia in the Star Wars films, only for the role to go to "The one that sleeps with George Lucas" instead.
Obviously, this is a tongue-in-cheek reference to Carrie Fisher herself as the one who played the famous science fiction royal in both the original Star Wars trilogy and the first two films of the Disney-owned sequel trilogy. Fisher was also a beloved creative outside of her work in Star Wars, writing the hit novel Postcards From the Edge, as well as her autobiography, Wishful Drinking. Fisher's willingness to poke fun at herself in Scream 3 is a great distillation of her unique sense of humor.
It isn't just the earlier Scream movies that were fond of casting actors whose faces are just barely shy of being easily recognizable. Enter Tony Revolori as Jason Carvey, a film student at Blackmore University who acts as an early antagonist in Scream VI. Carvey gets his comeuppance early on as the third victim of the New York Murders depicted in Scream VI, making him one of the few villains of the series to quickly be dispatched by a bigger fish.
Tony Revolori got his big break as Zero in the beloved Wes Anderson film The Grand Budapest Hotel, keeping up with dazzling performers like Ralph Fiennes despite his tender age. He's also known in Blockbusters as the bully of Peter Parker, Flash Thompson, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Spider-Man films, putting a modern twist on the generic archetypal high school jerk. Revolori gets replaced as the villain of Scream VI tragically early.
Timothy Olyphant represents yet another gem buried within the stacked cast of Scream 2 is Timothy Olyphant, whose distinctive face is easy to forget amid the cavalcade of characters. Olyphant stars as Mickey Altieri, another film student at Windosr College and the third officially revealed Ghostface Killer of the Scream franchise. True to the first film, he's quite difficult to suspect as a suspect the first time around, making Olyphant's presence surprisingly hard to remember despite being unmasked as the killer.
Timothy Olyphant is best known for his TV characters, including Seth Bullock in Deadwood, Danny Cordray in The Office, and Raylan Givens in Justified. More recently, he starred alongside fellow Scream series alum Drew Barrymore in the tragically-canceled horror comedy Netflix original Santa Clarita Diet. Considering Mickey spends most of his time on-screen as in the Ghostface mask with Roger L. Jackson's snickering evil voice, it's shockingly easy to forget Olyphant is there at all.
The incompetence of police forces are yet another recurring trope in slasher movies that the Scream franchise plays with in characters like Anthony Perkins, played hilariously by Anthony Anderson. Perkins is one of two police officers assigned to guard Sidney Prescott after threats against her are made. They also ending up protecting Kate and Jill, only to fall prey to the Ghostface Killer like so many others when push comes to shove.
Anthony Anderson is a comedically gifted actor with a wide range of appearances in different properties who is easy to recognize, but less easy to name. His hit characters include comic relief hacker Glen Whitmann in Transformers, one of the co-protagonists in Kangaroo Jack, and the lead sitcom father of the ABC series black-ish. Anderson is one of the many barely-unrecognizable stars tapped for their hilarious comedy chops in the franchise.
