Melissa Barrera was afraid her career was over when she was fired from the Scream franchise after her statements on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
In a new interview with The Independent, Barrera said: “It was quiet for, like, 10 months. I was still getting offers for small things here and there – I’m not going to lie and say there was nothing – but [the message] was, like, ‘Oh, she probably doesn’t have work, she’ll say yes to anything’.”
Speaking about the Scream franchise, in which Barrera played Sam Carpenter, the daughter of Billy Loomis, she said: “They gave me a lot in my career. I made really good friends. I have such loyal fans from those movies that are now watching the rest of the stuff that I do.”
She noted that Scream fans inquire about her wellbeing at conventions, saying, “Or they’re like, ‘What they did to you is so messed up, I’m so sorry that happened!’ And it’s something, I think, that’s never going to end. Because the franchise is never going to end. So while I still have so much love for [those movies], the reminders of that very sour moment make it a little bit weird.”
Things have finally started returning to normal for the actress, who’s now filming an espionage thriller series for Peacock alongside Simu Liu that she thinks is “exactly what I needed to ease myself back into the industry and do something fun that’s not going to destroy me emotionally.”
“It felt like I had been invisible, and then all of a sudden, there was a switch that made me visible again,” Melissa Barrera added of the series. “I feel better. I was stuck in the sand dunes for a while, and now I feel like my feet are moving, I have an oxygen tank, and I’m, like… going up.”