Meet Mindy, the “Scream” Sequel’s New Queer Character

"What I love about playing Mindy is she's a queer Black woman, just like myself," says actress Jasmin Savoy-Brown.

Sydney Prescott, Gale Weathers, and Dewey Riley are back for another round with the Ghostface killer in the gory new trailer for the fifth Scream movie.

Outside of Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, and David Arquette reprising their roles from the first four Scream movies, and the introduction of a new generation of Woodsboro High students, not much is known about the next chapter of the Scream franchise — except, of course, that there will be blood.

The original Scream movie and characters were created by a gay man, screenwriter Kevin Williamson. The franchise is beloved by queer fans, who are in for a treat with the introduction of the Scream sequel’s new group of teenagers, including Mindy, a queer character played by newcomer Jasmin Savoy-Brown.

“What I love about playing Mindy is she’s a queer Black woman, just like myself, so I’m really proud of that,” Savoy-Brown told Logo during an on-set interview last year. “The directors and the writers have done a beautiful job out of making characters that aren’t tropes and aren’t caricatures. They’re just people existing in this world. When they asked for collaboration, they were just asking me to be my full self. So there wasn’t a lot of tweaking to do, I felt I could just fully exist just as myself which is a person who happens to be queer, and the writing reflects that.”

She went on to explain what it was like working with the movie’s directing duo, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, and their collaborative process during the filming:

The legacy of the franchise, what I read of the script, I thought it was really great writing and I appreciated the character that they [the directors] built. For me what will make a break an experience is the people I am working with. After having a meeting with the directors I was like, okay, I have to do this because they’re awesome and it would be a lot of fun, and I just lucked out that everyone else was great too. One of the very first things they said was, “We want you to participate fully in building this character and building this world, so any thoughts you have, anything that is important to you as a person that you want to be part of your character, let us know, we’ll make it happen.” That often is not the case with directors, so that made me feel very loved and welcome to participate, which is really nice.

Courtesy of Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group

Savoy-Brown’s co-star, Dylan Minnette, who plays Wes, confirmed that their characters are going to high school and “all care about each other, they’re a close group of friends.”

“Some of them really want to protect each other,” he explained. “Everyone is aware of the past and the history of Woodsboro. They are all looking out for each other at the end of the day.

When asked if he could share any more details about the sequel, Minnette teased, “It’s just gonna be bloody.”

The new Scream preview released today (October 12) doesn’t reveal much about the movie’s plot, but we do get a glimpse of Mindy coming in very close contact with Ghostface’s bloody knife. It’s safe to assume she will be fighting for her life in some action-packed, gory scenes. But will she survive? You’ll have to wait until Scream hits theaters on January 14, 2022, to find out.

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