It’s safe to say that Ghostface has traumatized Courteney Cox.
The actress, who is reprising her role as opportunistic reporter Gale Weathers in Scream 7, recently revealed that she attended an early screening of the slasher sequel and was so frightened by it that she was afraid to leave the theater to use the bathroom.
“I’m scared of everything anyway,” Cox admitted on Tuesday’s episode of The Tonight Show. She added, “I’m just a real jumpy person — birds, things, you name it.”
But she also had a reasonable explanation for why she was particularly afraid of taking a mid-movie bathroom break.
Todd Owyoung/NBC
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“In Scream, there is one where Ghostface is under a bathroom stall,” she explained. “So when you go to a bathroom anywhere I’m just waiting to see those black boots come down. Or parking lots! It doesn’t matter!”
If Ghostface has proven one thing, it’s that they’re not afraid to attack someone at their most vulnerable. The masked murderer attempted to kill Sidney (Neve Campbell) in a bathroom in the original 1996 Scream, and succeeded in offing Phil (Omar Epps) in a movie theater bathroom stall in the 1997 sequel.
“I had to go to the bathroom and I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m too scared to go to the bathroom,'” Cox confessed.
Naturally, she tried to get her daughter, Coco Arquette, to come with her. “And [Coco’s] like, ‘I don’t want to miss the movie!'” she recalled. “So we called each other, I was on the phone.”
Cox then attempted to spook her daughter, but the prank didn’t quite land. “I tried to be Ghostface, and I don’t sound good doing it. I was like, ‘Do you like scary movies?'” Cox said. “I couldn’t do it! She’s like, ‘Mom, you’re so… dumb.'”
Cox also teased what fans of the franchise can expect from Scream 7.
“Sidney Prescott is back. And her daughter, [played by] Isabel May… she’s incredible. Anyway, it’s a mother-daughter relationship and it’s a real tearjerker,” she said. “No, I’m just kidding! It’s scary and good, but there is heart.”
Scream 7 hits theaters Friday. Watch Cox discuss the film in the video above.