Actor Matthew Lillard said “Fuck ICE” during a special Halloween party screening of his 1996 horror film Scream over the weekend.
Lillard, who played the character Stu in the slasher classic, made a surprise appearance at Cinespia’s Halloween party screening of the film where he asked the crowd to “lead with love.”
“Fuck ICE,” he said as the audience cheered. “In this time, in this city, we need to lead with love. Do not forget that shit in this moment — not to be political, but to be political as shit.”
Lillard also asked the audience to vote Yes on Proposition 50, a ballot initiative to redistrict California and cancel out the five Republican seats created in Texas.
“You have to vote. If you don’t vote, we are going down, so it’s on us. And if you don’t like that, I’m so not sorry,” he concluded.
Lillard will reportedly be returning to the Scream franchise in the upcoming seventh installment, though his exact role has been kept under wraps. The series fell subject to controversy in 2023 when producers fired actress Melissa Barrera from the franchise after she accused Israel of genocide.
“Gaza is currently being treated like a concentration camp,” she wrote in an Instagram Story at the time. “Cornering everyone together, with nowhere to go, no electricity no water … People have learnt nothing from our histories. And just like our histories, people are still silently watching it all happen. THIS IS GENOCIDE & ETHNIC CLEANSING.”
As noted by The Hollywood Reporter (THR), Barrera helped usher the Scream franchise into a new generation with the 2022 feature that “earned $137.7 million globally and combined generations of cast members from the franchise.”
Spyglass, the company behind the film, issued a strongly-worded denunciation of Barrera’s original post.
“Spyglass’ stance is unequivocally clear: We have zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form, including false references to genocide, ethnic cleansing, Holocaust distortion or anything that flagrantly crosses the line into hate speech,” a Spyglass spokesperson tells Variety.
Last week, upon release of the Scream 7 trailer, fans of Barrera voiced their displeasure over her absence.
Paul Roland Bois directed the award-winning Christian tech thriller, EXEMPLUM, which has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes critic rating and can be viewed for FREE on YouTube, Tubi, or Fawesome TV. “Better than Killers of the Flower Moon,” wrote Mark Judge. “You haven’t seen a story like this before,” wrote Christian Toto. A high-quality, ad-free rental can also be streamed on Google Play, Vimeo on Demand, or YouTube Movies. Follow him on X @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms.
