The Big Picture
- Landing the leading role in
Scream
was a huge step for Willa Fitzgerald, who had limited on-camera acting experience before. - Working on
Scream
was a trial by fire for Fitzgerald, who had to learn to let go of perfectionism in a fast-paced environment. - Despite the challenges, Fitzgerald credits
Scream
for opening doors in her career and teaching her valuable lessons on set.
Landing the first big job in a career you’ve dreamt about your entire life is stressful. And we don’t just mean for actors, because anyone can feel the pressure on their first day at a new gig. For Reacher’s Willa Fitzgerald, she was thrown into the world of Hollywood in a sink-or-swim style thanks to her casting as the leading character in the MTV series, Scream. Nabbing any role is a big deal, but for Fitzgerald, Scream was a huge step for several reasons. For one, the pressure was cranked up the entire way for the cast of the series as longtime fans of the film franchise were intrigued — and concerned — about how MTV would handle the whodunit plot in an episodic form.
Secondly, as Fitzgerald recently revealed to Perri Nemiroff while stopping by for the latest episode of Collider Ladies Night, Scream was a huge get considering her background wasn’t in television or film, and she didn’t have a lot of experience on set. She said:
“I hadn’t gone to school for acting, and
I also had only ever done theater
. I did the season of
Royal Pains
; that was one of my first jobs where I was on set every day. Then pretty soon after that, I started
Scream
, where I was like, number one on the call sheet and
it was a whirlwind of its own kind
. Early on, I remember having the distinct feeling of, ‘Oh my god, it’s such a privilege to learn on the job,’ and also, ‘
Everyone
is seeing my mistakes, and my mistakes are permanently just in the world.’Not everyone gets the opportunity, so
it’s an amazing opportunity
to be making a career while also learning, but it was also very scary for someone like me who has always had perfectionist tendencies. Obviously, there’s no room for perfectionism in this profession anyway, so it’s something that I’ve had to learn to let go of. But I think that was also a process of learning. Hands down,
I learned so much from working on
Scream
because that was really a trial by fire.
”
Willa Fitzgerald Takes Us Behind the Scenes of ‘Scream’
Along with learning the ropes while on the job, Fitzgerald says that her experience on the set of Scream also helped her career blossom. However, she doesn’t sugarcoat what every day was like reminiscing about the tight filming deadlines and hectic schedules. She told Collider:
“That show has opened so many doors for me, especially at that point in my career, and also, at the same time, was a really hard show. The
scripts were constantly being written as we were shooting
, so we would often get pages on the day, which was a wild experience to have the first time I was a lead of a show.
We were also shooting really fast
. I think we had five or seven-day episodes, so seven days to shoot a huge thing. I think that what I learned from that experience most fundamentally was
you have to create the space for yourself on set to do your job
.”
A self-described introvert, Fitzgerald added that, although she thought that as the top person on the call sheet, she needed to be the production’s leader, she quickly learned that social burnout was a very real thing. She explained:
“As a young person who was put in the position of leading a show, I felt like there were a lot of things that I had to do just to be a good leader on set, like
being outgoing or being really present with everyone
. What I’ve realized about myself over the years, also, is just that
I am a really fundamental introvert and my energy quickly leaves
if I’m just hanging out on set. I really can’t do that. I think that show and subsequent things after that taught me that there are also a million other ways to be the top of the call sheet and still lead by example and create a positive working environment for everybody else without also being the cheerleader for everyone at the same time. I feel like that was a really important lesson.”
MTV’s Scream is available for purchase on Prime Video, and you can see Fitzgerald opposite Kyle Gallner now in Strange Darling at a theater near you. Check out Fitzgerald’s full episode of Collider Ladies Night below.
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