Taking on Ghostface is one thing, but with "Scream 7,"Isabel Maywas confronted by an even greater fear.
May, the 25-year-old "1883" breakout who plays the daughter ofNeve Campbell's Sidney Prescottin the slasher franchise's latest outing (now in theaters), tells USA TODAY she was "barely getting by" after coming down with a "horrible stomach flu and a sinus infection" during the shoot. She "panicked" over the notion that she might disrupt filming by being unable to work.
"The most horrifying thing to me is the prospect of slowing down a production in any capacity," she says.
One morning, it got so bad that she "literally couldn't get out of bed," she recalls. "I called our second [assistant director] and I told her, and I was kind of devastated." Her onscreen mother, though, stepped in to save the day. Campbell, who is also a producer on "Scream 7," immediately called May and told her, "Don't worry about it. I've got you." The schedule was quickly rearranged so Campbell would shoot some of her own coverage that day, and May wouldn't be needed.
"I always want to be an absolute professional and make sure everyone's happy with the work that I'm contributing," May says. "It's my greatest fear to be a problem. That she made me not feel like I was, and recognized that I was a human — it was very much a maternal act from Neve."
"Scream 7" is filled with such acts, as the meta horror franchise turns focus to the strained relationship between legendary "final girl" Sidney Prescott and her 17-year-old daughter, Tatum (May). After Sidney went into hiding and started a quiet life with her husband Mark (Joel McHale) and kids, her peace is disrupted when yet another killer donning the Ghostface mask arrives.
May, who was born four years after the first "Scream" came out, had never seen any of the films when director Kevin Williamson reached out to set up a Zoom meeting. Quickly, she "panicked" and binged the entire franchise. "I thought I'd be quizzed or something by him," she says.
She later did get a quiz in a sense: After May read a "Scream 7" script where the end was redacted, Williamson asked her to guess Ghostface's identity. "I guessed accurately," she notes.
Who is Isabel May? Meet the '1883' breakout going toe to toe with Ghostface
May traces her acting journey back to age 4, when she told adults that she wanted "to make movies" when she grew up. But her passion for storytelling initially manifested itself as a love for reading.
"It was my way of getting out of conversation because I didn't really like conversing with people too much," she says. When a teacher advised her parents to get her involved in something more social, it led her to acting.
The "Scream 7" cast showed out for the global premiere at Paramount Pictures Studios on Feb. 25, 2026, in Los Angeles.
See the stars on the black carpet, beginning here, from left, with Joel McHale, Skeet Ulrich, Celeste O'Connor, Ethan Embry, Jimmy Tatro, Mckenna Grace, Scott Foley, Anna Camp, Matthew Lillard, Sam Rechner, Timothy Simons, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Isabel May, Victor Turpin, Neve Campbell, Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding." style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" />
Courteney Cox" style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" />
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See Courteney Cox, Neve Campbell, David Arquette at 'Scream 7' premiere
The "Scream 7" cast showed out for the global premiere at Paramount Pictures Studios on Feb. 25, 2026, in Los Angeles.See the stars on the black carpet, beginning here, from left, with Joel McHale, Skeet Ulrich, Celeste O'Connor, Ethan Embry, Jimmy Tatro, Mckenna Grace, Scott Foley, Anna Camp, Matthew Lillard, Sam Rechner, Timothy Simons, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Isabel May, Victor Turpin, Neve Campbell, Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding.
After three years of auditions, at age 15, May told her parents she wanted to "commit to this thing that I love to do permanently," and they allowed her to leave school and transition to an online education. What followed was a "nerve-racking six months of complete and utter isolation," during which May had "no friends" and was singularly focused on getting her first job.
"My mother had all the faith in the world," May remembers. "My father was nervous for me, but didn't want to be. And I think I straddled between both of those feelings."
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But May "just kept working and had faith in myself," and it paid off when she booked that first gig: a starring role on the Netflix sitcom "Alexa & Katie," which ran from 2018 to 2020. Later, her performance as Elsa Dutton on the "Yellowstone" prequel "1883" put her on the map. But May says coming off the show, she went through a period where she "very much doubted" herself.
"After ['1883'], I thought the world was my oyster, and it wasn't. I didn't know how to navigate at all," she says, noting she got caught up in letting "other people tell me what was the right thing to do, rather than trust my intuition." Now, though, "All the decisions I'm making are very much my own."
Isabel May reveals best advice she got from Neve Campbell
It was "1883" that landed May on "Scream" creator Williamson's radar and made him think of her for Sidney's daughter. Before filming, May met Campbell for dinner, and as someone who knows well what May was about to go through, the "Party of Five" star had some helpful advice. First, she urged May to appreciate that horror fans are a uniquely devoted group.
"It wasn't a warning so much as just, 'Be prepared for that. It's a huge privilege,'" May says.
What was even more helpful, though, was Campbell's insight into why fans love horror so much.
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"A lot of folks that are in communities where they feel like they're disenfranchised or separate from society and are not embraced by the rest of the world, they found comfort in these films," May says.
"That's why Kevin Williamson wrote this as a young queer man. He wrote Sidney as a reflection of how he felt, being chased by something and trying to escape it. That's such a beautiful concept and idea, and I suddenly had a totally different approach to why I was doing it and who I was connecting with."
But the "Scream 7" shoot was no walk in the park. A creepy scene where Tatum hides from Ghostface in a cramped space behind a wall required May to get over some deep-seated claustrophobia. "I got stuck in an elevator one time. I've never been the same since," she says. May also still wound up working while ill; a chase sequence where Ghostface comes after Tatum was shot while May was feeling unwell, but she could at least manage to stand up.
"This is my positive spin: It helped me get into character," she says, laughing. "I felt terrible. I needed to feel terrible. It was great! It was very useful."
Next up from May are a series of movies featuring stars includingCynthia Erivo,David CorenswetandJennifer Lopez. After that, coming off a slate of roles in genres from Westerns to horror, May is "itching" to star in a good old-fashioned drama.
"Anything I haven't done, I want to do," she says. "Anything I haven't done in a while, I want to revisit, and just continue to seek out things that I'm definitely not the prototype for."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:'Scream 7' cast — Meet Isabel May, star behind Sidney's daughter Tatum
Taking on Ghostface is one thing, but with "Scream 7,"Isabel Maywas confronted by an even greater fear. ...
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