When we wrote yesterday about the addition of three new actors to “Scream 4,” we were almost sure that the casting was basically wrapped up on Wes Craven’s sequel, considering that filming is already underway. We knew that a replacement was being sought for Lauren Graham, who exited the project due to clashes with her TV show “Parenthood” (as well, as apparently, ‘script changes’), but we thought otherwise that the all the necessary players were on board.
As it turns out, there was more to come, as The Wrap have announced that TV stars Alison Brie and Mary McDonnell have joined the cast. Brie is best known for playing Pete Campbell’s wife on “Mad Men,” but she’s been killing it on the excellent NBC sitcom “Community” this season, alongside Joel McHale and was-never-going-to-be-Spider-Man-anyway-time-to-move-on comedian Donald Glover. She’ll play Rebecca, the ambitious, envious PA of Neve Campbell’s character, a part that seems perfect for Brie’s Type A persona. More importantly, it seems to put the rest the rumors that Campbell’s character would pull a Jamie Lee Curtis and be killed off in the opening scenes — it’s unlikely her PA would be necessary if that was true…
There’s no word on who McDonnell, most familiar from “Independence Day,” “Donnie Darko” and her consistently excellent performance as the morally compromised president on “Battlestar Galactica,” will play — she’s perhaps a little old to be replacing Graham. Either way, it’s two strong additions to an unusually good cast for this kind of thing — even if, with the sheer number of characters involved, it seems to be shaping up like a slasher movie version of “Nashville.”
