Melissa Barrera on Ballet Horror Abigail, Her Love for Ireland, and Speaking Out for What You Believe In

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“Wait, you’re from Ireland? I love Ireland!” screams Melissa Barrera on our Zoom call. It’s early in the morning, and Barrera has the most excitable grin on her face. She’s sporting one of those big trendy green scrunchies in her hair, a fitting accessory for our discussion of the Emerald Isle. Barrera doesn’t love Ireland in the annoying, almost infantilising way the internet does. On the contrary, Dublin is where her latest movie, horror thriller *Abigail* (2024), directed by Matt Bettnelli-Olphin and Tyler Gillett, was filmed. It was also the place where Barrera experienced profound healing and witnessed life-changing solidarity, not just towards herself but towards the people of Palestine, as Israel continues to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

In November 2023, Variety broke the news that Barrera had been fired from Scream 7 because of her pro-Palestinian Instagram posts. It was within the Scream franchise that Barrera rose to prominence in Hollywood, establishing herself as an influential figure in the horror genre, or more accurately, as a Scream Queen. Barrera’s posts were wrongfully misconstrued as antisemitic, as many rightful criticisms of Israel’s actions in Occupied Palestinian Territories are accused of being. As a result, Spyglass, the company producing Scream, let Barrera go under the guise of standing up against antisemitism. In their statement to Variety, they stated, “Spyglass’ stance is unequivocally clear: We have zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form, including false references to genocide, ethnic cleansing, Holocaust distortion or anything that flagrantly crosses the line into hate speech.”

melissa barrera polyester cover may 2024 — Top: Comme Des Garcons | Skirt: Comme Des Garcons | Shoes: Manolo Blahnik

“I was gaslit into feeling that I had done or said something wrong,” Barrera powerfully explains to me. “I will never forgive those people who made me feel that way, who made me think I had done something wrong. I knew deep down in my heart that I hadn’t. Still, you feel scared because you’re vulnerable and on the world stage, but I know I’m on the right side of history because I stand with all the world’s Indigenous people.”

It was in Ireland, a country that deeply understands Palestine’s long struggle against colonialism and oppression due to their shared history, that Barrera felt affirmed and supported in her actions. “I genuinely think that the universe made me be in Ireland when all that happened because I could not have been in a safer, more supportive environment. I felt very loved, and I constantly had the crew members for Abigail come up to me and be like, ‘I’m so proud of you.’ It was the best feeling to be there. In one of the first countries to come out and say, ‘We stand with Palestinians.’”

Abigail is Barrera’s latest movie since being let go from the Scream franchise. She was first cast in April 2023, having previously worked with directors Bettnelli-Olphin and Gillett on Scream (2022) and Scream VI (2023). The horror thriller follows a group of kidnappers who capture the daughter of an influential underworld figure and demand $50 million for her release. However, they are unaware that the young girl (Abigail) is actually a vampire. The cast is star-studded, featuring the illustrious Giancarlo Esposito, Kathryn Newton, Dan Stevens, Alisha Weir, the late Angus Cloud and more.

Barrera plays Joey, a skilled former military medic struggling with substance abuse issues, who is one of the six criminals who abduct Abigail. Joey is cold and calculated. She is a character that Barrera believes she's least like out of all the roles she’s played but loves deeply nonetheless. “The thing that I connected with Joey the most on was that she’s tough but also secretly vulnerable,” Barrera confesses. “In her line of work, she has this hard exterior so the men don’t dismiss her and take her seriously. What you see is this internal conflict when she realises that they’ve kidnapped a little girl and she has a son that age. She’s deeply conflicted and wants to protect this little girl as much as possible.” She continues: “I liked that the two sides of her showed a woman having those traditional “feminine” qualities of being a nurturer, a protector, and having this gentleness with a child. But at the same time, Joey is tough, and when shit hits the fan, she’s the one that leads everyone to try to survive the night.”

Within the horror genre, women are consistently disrupting traditional patriarchal notions of femininity. They are messy, gluttonous, disgusting and deceitful - everything women are told not to be. Take Ari Aster’s Hereditary (2018), for example, a horror film that is a favourite of Barrera’s, who thought it was “brilliant because it’s genuinely mortifying on every level”. Toni Collette plays Annie Graham, a mother grieving the death of her daughter, who was accidentally killed by her brother. Collette’s portrayal of Annie’s grief is ugly and painful. Any beliefs around ideal femininity are completely dismissed in her representation of Annie, showcasing the full complexity of grief and loss. These are the types of roles that Barrera admits to being drawn to the most.

“I’m always attracted to women who are warriors in film. Who get thrown obstacles and have to find a way to survive, usually on their own”, Barrera says. “I don’t know what that reveals about me, but if you look at my filmography, most of my characters are like that. It’s not something I was conscious about until very recently when I was interviewed by someone who pointed that out to me. I love the ‘Final Girl’ trope in horror films. it’s always a woman who gets to survive, be triumphant and defeat whatever evil forces are in her way.”

While horror films create an exciting space for women to transgress patriarchal expectations, Barrera informs me that it is not the only genre in which women do that. “Did you know that musicals are also a space that allows women to be bold, big, loud and messy? That’s always been a musical theatre thing,” she tells me. Barrera first started her acting career in musical theatre, attending New York University Tish School of the Arts to study musical theatre, where she appeared in several of the school’s musical productions. In 2021, Barrera starred as Vanessa, an aspiring fashion designer and love interest of the narrator, in Jon M. Chu and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s film adaptation of In The Heights. In the following year, she starred alongside Paul Mescal in the film musical Carmen, directed by Benjamin Millepied. “That is why I love horrors and musicals,” Barrera remarks. “Because women are allowed to be things that society has deemed inappropriate. The two have more in common than you’d think.”

Even after the last few months of ostracism, gaslighting, and bullying, as well as unprecedented love and support, Barrera still speaks so lovingly of her artistic practice. It is because of the love she has for acting that she knows that her relationship with it must change. “I know the damage that has been done to not just Mexicans but all Latinos through storytelling, and so I’ve always been very intentional about saying no to certain things that will be feeding into certain stereotypes and tropes.” Barrera carefully spells out. “But after everything that’s happened in the last year, I want to also put the same intentionality towards picking the kind of creatives I want to work with. I think what happened to me was the perfect life filter because the people who don’t want to work with me anymore, I’d never want to work with anyway. The people who do are more like-minded and will probably be telling the kinds of stories that I want to tell.”

Barrera ends our conversation optimistically, remarking that she has no regrets over the events of the last few months, only immense gratitude, as she prepares for the release of her next film, Your Monster, a horror romance directed by Caroline Lindy. “I don’t regret anything. I’m very appreciative of all the support that I’ve gotten from my team, my friends, and my family. And from many people in the world who have shown me love and support. When I get stopped on the street now, it’s not because I’m recognised for being in a film; it’s mostly someone thanking me for speaking up for Palestine. It’s super weird, but it’s nice. It fills my heart. I’m just so, so grateful.”

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