Matthew Lillard doesn’t care about Stu Macher as much as you do

Matthew Lillard loves that people enjoy Stu Macher, but he appears ready to move on from the Scream franchise.

Despite only appearing in one entry in the Scream franchise, Stu Macher remains a fan favorite of the Scream community. And while another one of the original killers, Billy Loomis, turned up in the fifth entry, Lillard (despite promising teases) sat out as Macher, instead offering his voice for the party scene. As it turns out, Lillard feels a little woozy about the character, saying it’s just a job for him.

Speaking with Collider, Matthew Lillard said that, while he’s happy there is a fanbase for Stu Macher, he won’t succumb to any peer pressure of reprising his signature character. “It’s a part I played. It’s like if you’re a plumber, do you care about the house you did down the street and around the corner? No, it’s your job. And I love that job, it’s been nice to have that in my resume, but the reality is that it’s a part I did 20-plus years ago.” He added, “So, what is important to me is that what it means to other people is deeply relevant when you see them all the time, and powerful. It’s not something I understood before that.”

As we know, Stu Macher got a TV tossed on his head after slicing and dicing members of the Woodsboro community, electrocuting him in his own living room. Of course, there could be ways to bring back Stu – officially confirmed as dead by screenwriter Kevin Williamson – for another Scream, just as they did for Skeet Ulrich’s Billy Loomis, who showed up as a hallucination of daughter Sam’s despite also being a victim of Sidney Prescott after a perfectly timed jump scare. Macher’s robe – and the aforementioned television set – can at least be seen in the shrine featured in Scream VI.

Outside of Stu Macher, Matthew Lillard has still popped up in a handful of horror movies, namely this fall’s Five Nights at Freddy’s, which some say has its own special Scream nod in it: