The actor is back in a big way with a new Ghostface-themed vodka, “Scream” reprisal, and “Carrie” role coming up.

‘It is Matthew Lillard 2.0 right now’: Scream 7 star talks surprise Stu Macher return and his horror renaissance (exclusive)

The actor is back in a big way with a new Ghostface-themed vodka, "Scream" reprisal, and "Carrie" role coming up.

By Nick Romano

Nick Romano is a senior editor at ** with 15 years of journalism experience covering entertainment. His work previously appeared in *Vanity Fair*, Vulture, IGN, and more.

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January 28, 2026 10:00 a.m. ET

Matthew Lillard. Credit:

Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images; Ryan Green / Universal Pictures; ©Dimension Films/Courtesy Everett Collection

- Matthew Lillard opens up about his *Scream 7* return to Stu Macher, his new Ghostface-inspired vodka, and his modern horror renaissance.

- Lillard hasn't told a soul outside of production the context of Stu's return, but calls his comeback "a gamble of legacy."

- On the *Carrie* TV series, he says Mike Flanagan is "mining modern-day events that directly relate to the world that *Carrie* was built around."

It seems just about everyone in Hollywood loves Matthew Lillard. That was the impression left by a surge of supportive posts that flooded the actor's social media feed back in December, directly after director Quentin Tarantino went on *The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast* and said he didn't care for Lillard as an actor. (Comparable disparagements were said about Owen Wilson and Paul Dano.)

Mike Flanagan, who directed Lillard in *The Life of Chuck* and works with him again on the upcoming TV series adaptation of *Carrie*, called the actor "the goddamn greatest." James Gunn, for whom Lillard played Shaggy in two live-action *Scooby-Doo*s, referred to him as "one of my favorite guys (and actors)." George Clooney, his former costar on *The Descendants*, said during an AARP acceptance speech that he "would be honored to work with those actors" Tarantino mentioned.

Ryan Reynolds even tapped Lillard for a cheeky Mint Mobile ad addressing the situation — "the most profitable" of the celebrity reactions, Lillard jokes.

"It was crazy. I keep showing it to my wife to convince her that I am worthy, that people still like me," he tells ** in jest more than a month later. "I am a piece of ass!"

Lillard reflects on the situation on a sunny Wednesday afternoon in mid-January, while seated at his desk in his Los Angeles home. It's a couple of hours before he has to leave for an afternoon soccer game. His eldest daughter, Addison, 23, pops in at one point to wave at the Zoom screen.

Matthew Lillard with a bottle of Ghost Face Vodka.

"It was like living through your own wake," Lillard describes of that influx. "All those R.I.P. emails or tweets and Instagram posts and TikToks, all of the things we see after somebody passes are so sweet. And the reality is I just got to live through all of it firsthand — alive and kicking! I can't imagine a more lovely reaction to what happened."

Combined, all the support from his peers in the biz serves as a catalog of his greatest hits, each one praising either Stu Macher in *Scream*, Dennis Rafkin in *Thir13en Ghosts*, Stevo in *SLC Punk!*, or any number of his other roles from a decades-spanning career. "Nobody has to like me," he adds. "Nobody has to like any actor out there, obviously. It's personal preference. I am not everyone's first choice, that is obvious, but to then have that kind of reaction was beautiful."

How Matthew Lillard learned of Stu Macher's 'Scream 7' return: 'I screamed'

Matthew Lillard and Skeet Ulrich reunite for 'Five Nights at Freddy's 2': 'It's a blessing'

Lillard now rides this wave of encouragement into one of the busiest years of this current horror renaissance. He's taking nickname submissions for this particular phase of his career. ("Lillard-sance?" he posits.)

His bustling 2026 starts with the liquor company he co-founded, Find Familiar Spirits, releasing a specialty *Scream*-inspired potato-based vodka called Ghost Face Vodka, named after the iconic serial killer from the slasher franchise celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. It'll be released through Macabre Spirits, a crafts spirits company under the Find Familiar Spirits umbrella that caters to the horror-loving crowd.

"I know firsthand how iconic that thing is," he notes of the white Ghostface mask. "The fan base that's been built around it is authentic, voracious, highly invested in identifying with that movie. At our company, we build from what we're connected to."

Ghost Face Vodka will hit shelves this Feb. 9 at $160 a bottle exclusively through the website GhostFaceVodka.com. A limited-time-only premium box (shown below) will include a bottle signed my Lillard, custom glassware, an exclusive Ghost Face pin, and Killer Bash Game (a new social party game developed for Ghost Face Vodka).

Ghost Face Vodka.

Find Familiar Spirits

But, of course, there's an even bigger reason to be talking about *Scream* and Lillard. With the release of the seventh movie, starring Neve Campbell once again as Sidney and Isabel May as her onscreen daughter, Tatum, Lillard returns to the role of Stu Macher, even though that character died alongside Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) as one of the two Ghostface killers in the original film.

To this day, Lillard hasn't uttered a word to anyone outside the production about how his character returns after all these years. "Not even my wife. Not even my kids," Lillard confirms. "One of the joys of this franchise is sitting in the dark with the entire world discovering what the twist is this time. To ruin that for anyone is to ruin one of the great joys of going to the cinema."

Lillard's dance card also includes playing a new Marvel figure, Mr. Charles, in season 2 of *Daredevil: Born Again* (March 24), though it isn't horror. Lillard calls the part "somebody who bends the ear of very powerful people around the world." There's also this year's season of *Cross* (Feb. 11) and, eventually, Flanagan's *Carrie* (premiere date still TBD). If all goes as planned, he'll soon add a third *Five Nights at Freddy's*. Universal and Blumhouse haven't announced another movie, but the box-office numbers for the second entry, based on the popular horror video games, appear strong. Lillard confirms the third installment is "hypothetically going to feature me a lot more."

Altogether, he considers this bounty of work strange and unexpected, but you won't find him complaining about it. "It is Matthew Lillard 2.0 right now," he comments.

Seeing ghost(face)s

Skeet Ulrich, Jamie Kennedy, and Matthew Lillard in 1996's 'Scream'.

Dimension Films/courtesy Everett

It feels significant that Stu Macher, a role he originated in 1996 and that helped put him on the pop culture map, is the same gig that kicks off this year.

Lillard was out on a walk, on a call with his business partners at Find Familiar Spirits, when Kevin Williamson rang him up. The original screenwriter of the first couple of *Scream*s wanted to know if he would reprise Mr. Macher in *Scream 7*, which Williamson now directs. It was not the question he was expecting, especially because Williamson had been so public with his messaging that *Scream* didn't need Lillard or Stu.

"I'll never forget when I read that," Lillard says of Williamson's initial comments. "I was heartbroken, because I was like, 'Why isn't Kevin just minding his business?' You know? 'Why does he gotta go out there and shoot a man down?' I mean, come on, dude. Give a kid a chance!"

It was only on that call that he realized Williamson's public remarks were just a red herring to throw fans off the trail. The filmmaker envisioned a story for the seventh movie centered around Sidney and the emergence of a new Ghostface. The iconic Scream Queen built a family with husband Mark Evans (Joel McHale), and her daughter is now the same age Sidney was when Billy and Stu embarked on a killing spree in that first movie.

Stu is one of multiple deceased *Scream* characters, including Roman Bridger (Scott Foley) and Dewey Riley (David Arquette), that factor into the narrative in some mysterious capacity. When you also consider the comebacks of Campbell and Courteney Cox (Gale Weathers), does this seventh film feel like "*Scream* All-Stars"?

"Not really because I've read the script," Lillard cracks.

The new Ghostface killer in 'Scream 7'.

Jessica Miglio/Paramount

It's a feat just to talk about this movie without giving away the context of Stu's return. Fan theories run amok online, but Lillard doesn't pay attention to them. He doesn't even feel comfortable responding when asked if Williamson's pitch on that phone call was something that crossed his mind over the years.

"That will definitely give stuff away," he responds. "I will say this: It didn't really matter to me in what capacity Kevin wanted me to come back. At the end of the day, I think the reason I was so excited about it was 'cause I had been fighting to come back. I was openly campaigning for years."

It's true. It seemed like Lillard used any chance he had over the years to support the popular fan theory that maybe Stu did survive electrocution by way of a TV set to the face. Now that he *is* back, however, Lillard admits *Scream 7* felt like a "gamble" in some ways.

"There was so much anxiety, so much fear, so much insecurity about stepping back into something that, frankly — and it's yet to be determined — could go really poorly," he says. "I mean, if people hate the movie, hate me, hate Stu, question why I came back, all of that weighs on me heavily… It's a gamble of legacy. I wouldn't want to hurt the legacy at all. And if I thought it would, I wouldn't be here."

*Carrie*, which he shot last year in Vancouver, also felt like a gamble, but in a different sense. The question there was whether the Stephen King novel, one of the author's shorter literary horror works, was worthy of an eight-episode season of television at one hour a pop? If so, how would they pull that off, given the length of the source material? All Lillard had to do was talk to Flanagan for two minutes.

Sissy Spacek as Carrie White in 1976's 'Carrie'. Everett Collection

"He's already not only figured it out, he solved that riddle with the most poignant, eloquent way you can: going back to the source material, mining modern-day events that directly relate to the world that *Carrie* was built around," he explains. "This idea of bullying is not just [1976] film material. It's still very relevant, more so now than ever."

Lillard has a clear memory of when he realized he had entered "the Flana-fam," the nickname for Flanagan's recurring roster of actors. It was after *The Life of Chuck*, which released last year. Lillard invited Flanagan and his sons to visit the set of *Five Nights at Freddy's 2*. While giving them a tour, Lillard heard about the various projects the horror auteur had coming up, including *Carrie*.

"I'm such a big monkey, I have nothing to hide. I'm like, 'Hey! So now that I'm in the Flana-fam, what does that mean?'" Lillard recalls. "'Do I tell you I'm working in the fall? Do I start clearing dates?'"

In response, Flanagan said he would ask Lillard to be in anything he's working on that makes sense for both of them, and it'd be a yes-or-no question. That's how *Carrie* came about. Summer H. Howell stars as the bullied high school teen who begins to hone her telekinetic powers until it all erupts one fateful prom night. Samantha Sloyan, another Flana-fam regular, plays Margaret White, Carrie's abusive, religious mother.

"People are gonna lose their minds," Lillard predicts. "There's also so many things in the book that weren't in the original [Brian] De Palma film that I think people are really gonna be excited about."

We all Scream for Lillard

Matthew Lillard at the premiere of 'Five Nights at Freddy's 2'.

Savion Washington/Getty

Whether it's *Carrie* or *Five Nights at Freddy's*, Lillard is more acutely aware these days of the effect his presence has when he walks onto a set. Audiences can feel it, too. When you see Lillard on screen, your mind associates him with a specific character or era of movie-making.

"For better or for worse, there's a stigma about you stepping on set, especially stepping on set for *Scream 7*," he acknowledges. "Everyone there knows who you are. Everyone there is aware of the legacy of that character, that film, that moment."

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It's contrary to Lillard's first day working on the original *Scream*. He remembers shooting the sequence at the high school fountain with Campbell, Ulrich, and Rose McGowan (Tatum). Wes Craven, the director, was in an argument with McGowan over "something silly," Lillard recalls. What stands out to him most are the anxiety and imposter syndrome he felt, coming aboard as a relatively unknown actor.

"I remember being on set that day and swallowing hard," he says. "I was very embarrassed to be listening [to Craven and McGowan], and trying to establish a relationship with Skeet 'cause we were going to be [playing] best friends, and sort of that thing of Hollywood trying to figure out who we are as people, who we are as actors, how people work. I remember this great, big swell of insecurity, that by the end of the whole film, I realized that I had made friends for life."

To this day, now in his 50s, Lillard confesses he still feels imposter syndrome, but the situation sparked by Tarantino has helped. Just the other night, he went to see a stage play, and a woman sitting next to him shared unprompted how good an actor she thought he was. That kind of response from strangers has become more frequent and feels more meaningful to Lillard.

"That's the craziest part," he says. "Normal civilians are saying the sweetest things to my face. It's one thing to read it anonymously online, but it's another thing when somebody stops you and says, 'You're a great f---ing actor.'"**

Original Article on Source

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