Drew Barrymore Reveals Why She Fought for Her Character To Die Early in Scream

Drew Barrymore didn't want her time on screen in Scream to be like any other horror film role.

During an appearance on First We Feast’s Hot Ones series on Thursday, the 45-year-old actress talked about the history behind some of her biggest roles, including her iconic but short-lived one in the 1996 horror hit.

After host Sean Evans asked Barrymore if she chose to take on the film's smaller role instead of its lead part, Barrymore nodded her head and revealed to Evans, "In the horror film genre, my biggest pet peeve was that I always knew the main character was going to be slugging through at the end, but was going to creak by and make it. What I wanted to do is to take that comfort zone away."

So instead of playing the film's lead of Sydney Prescott, Barrymore insisted to Scream director, the late Wes Craven, that she play the role of Casey Becker instead, a character who gets killed off within the first 15 minutes of the fan-favorite film.

"I asked if I could be Casey Becker so that we would establish that rule does not apply in this film,” she revealed.

Scream was a huge box office success when it debuted in theaters in the '90s, and the franchise has gone on to produce three other films as well as a television series based on the mythos of the Scream universe.

Barrymore explained her decision to play the role of Casey in more detail back in 2011 to Entertainment Weekly, where she revealed that she was only on the film's set for five days.

"I just read the script one night at my house and I just said, 'Oh my God, there hasn’t been anything like this for so long,'" she said.

"I loved that it actually got tongue-in-cheeky but it was still scary and it was this great game that sort of described genres and revived them at the same time and redefined them all in one script," she continued. "I went bananas."

The Scream franchise is set to live on to see another day after it was announced earlier this year that David Arquette signed on to star in the series' fifth film, nine years after the release of Scream 4 and five years after the death of Craven at 76.

The movie is set to be directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (Ready or Not), two fans of the franchise who plan on honoring creator Craven's work in the first four movies.

Lead star Neve Campbell has expressed interest in returning to the franchise, telling Rotten Tomatoes during a Five Favorite Films interview, "We're having conversations. I have been approached about it."

And while it's hard to get a movie going as Hollywood remains shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, THR reports production will hopefully begin later this year in Wilmington, North Carolina, as long as safety protocols are in place.

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Last month, original film star Courteney Cox also signed on to star in the upcoming film, where she will reprise her role as Gale Weathers.

Arquette, 48, revealed during an interview with Entertainment Tonight that although he and Cox, 56, co-parent their children together, costarring with one another is "the easy part."

"We always love working together," he shared. "She's an incredible actress, so it'll be fun to bring these characters back to life and see where they're at."

The pair previously met on set of the 1996 original Scream and tied the knot in 1999, later splitting 2010 and finalizing their divorce three years later.