Scream 4: Kristen Stewart was asked to star in the film’s opening kill sequence

When Scream 4 (watch it HERE) was filming back in 2010, Kristen Stewart was knee-deep in the Twilight saga. The third of the five films was released in 2010, and the fourth (which was Part 1 of a climactic two-parter) was released in 2011, the same year Scream 4 reached theatres. She was starring in some of the biggest movies of the time, so it makes sense that she was contacted to star in the opening kill sequence of Scream 4. For certain members of the audience, seeing Kristen Stewart die at the beginning of a movie could have been just as shocking as it was to see Drew Barrymore die at the beginning of the first Scream in 1996. But Stewart declined the offer. During a recent interview with Slant, she explained why:

So it’s the Drew [Barrymore] character that gets killed in the beginning. And they created a whole sequence where a lot of people got killed to emulate the Drew thing. But it was just going to be one person, and I was like, “I can’t do a Drew. I can’t touch that.” Do you know what I mean? But, yeah, so then they ended up doing, if I’m remembering correctly, a larger sequence and not just one victim.”

She is correct. Scream 4 begins with a movie-within-a-movie-within-a-movie sequence that features six different characters rather than just one victim. The stars of that sequence are Lucy Hale, Shenae Grimes, Kristen Bell, Anna Paquin, Britt Robertson, and Aimee Teegarden.

One victim played by Kristen Stewart wasn’t the only alternative option explored; screenwriter Kevin Williamson recently confirmed that he had written an opening sequence in which franchise heroine Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) would be the one attacked by Ghostface at the beginning of the movie, and she would kill that Ghostface before having to deal with another one (or two) later in the story.

With a sixth Scream now in development, Slant asked Stewart if she would sign on to star in that film if she was contacted about it. She said,

Maybe. I would read the script. I love Neve Campbell so much. She was very nice to me, and it was very satisfying that she’s a very nice person. I love (the first Scream). I’ve watched it recently, as an adult though. It’s so gnarly. I love the movie because it loves movies. The coolest part of Scream is what it says about film. It’s so self-aware. It folds in on itself like six times. I love how much [Wes Craven] loves movies and how embedded that is. It’s a total film nerd type of movie. It’s not just a flasher flick. It’s a beautiful movie. It’s so hard to watch. I’m like, “I don’t have the stomach for that shit anymore.” I was like, “Oh, man, this is very, very, very intense.”

Stewart is now an Oscar nominee; she’s up for the Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role Academy Award this year for her performance as Princess Diana in Spencer.