Courteney Cox breaks silence about “Scream ”costar Hayden Panettiere’s death: ‘A really wonderful actor’ Ryan ColemanSun, September 13, 2026 at 5:59 PM UTC 0 Courteney Cox and Hayden Panettiere in ‘Scream 4’Credit: Gemma La Mana/Dimension/Weinstein (2)Cox and Panettiere starred together in 2011’s “Scream 4” and 2023’s “Scream VI.”Key Points Courteney Cox is looking back on starring opposite Hayden Panettiere in Scream 4 and Scream VI. “She’s a really wonderful actor. The last time I worked with her we had a great time,” Cox tells Entertainment Weekly. Panettiere died at the age of 36 on Aug.
Courteney Cox breaks silence about “Scream ”costar Hayden Panettiere’s death: ‘A really wonderful actor’
Ryan ColemanSun, September 13, 2026 at 5:59 PM UTC
0
Courteney Cox and Hayden Panettiere in ‘Scream 4’Credit: Gemma La Mana/Dimension/Weinstein (2)Cox and Panettiere starred together in 2011’s “Scream 4” and 2023’s “Scream VI.”Key Points -
Courteney Cox is looking back on starring opposite Hayden Panettiere in Scream 4 and Scream VI.
“She’s a really wonderful actor. The last time I worked with her we had a great time,” Cox tells Entertainment Weekly.
Panettiere died at the age of 36 on Aug. 16. Her cause of death is not yet known.
Courteney Cox is paying tribute to her Scream costar, Hayden Panettiere.
Cox, who has portrayed the ambitious journalist Gale Weathers in all seven films in the slasher franchise created by director Wes Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson in 1996, hadn’t yet joined the chorus of tributes to Panettiere, who died on Aug. 16 at the age of 36.
But speaking with Entertainment Weekly at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival, where she premiered her second-ever directorial feature, the true crime riff Evil Genius, Cox looked back at appearing in two Scream films with Panettiere.
“She’s a really wonderful actor,” Cox reflected. “The last time I worked with her we had a great time. She was really fun and happy and smart, and it’s really sad. It’s obviously horrible.”
Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.
The Scream franchise was already 15 years old when Panettiere was cast in the fourth installment. It was also the first fresh chapter in the bloody saga in over a decade, and would mark Craven’s final turn in the director’s chair before his death in 2015.
Advertisement
Expectations were high for Scream 4, should Williamson & co. want to revive the franchise in earnest for a new generation. The film’s box office success, however moderate, and enduring reputation as one of the better entries in the franchise are due in no small part to the ferocity that Panettiere brought to her new role as Kirby Reed.
Though all signs point to Kirby as the culprit behind the Ghostface killer in the film, Panettiere’s twisty performance proves a successful misdirect, and the character lived to see another day (and Scream film — Kirby would return another near-decade later for Scream VI).
Courteney Cox and Hayden Panettiere in ‘Scream VI’Credit: Philippe Bossé/ Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media (2)
Speaking with EW in 2025, Panettiere raved about her experience on the Scream 4 set, especially with regard to her time with the late, great Craven.
“I love the fact that I got to work with Wes Craven. He is amazing,” she reflected. “I’m so sad that he left us far before his time. But he had an incredible impact on my life and on me as an actor, which I now utilize when I go into other projects.”
Panettiere recalled an important lesson Craven taught her on “the timing of things... He would be like, ‘This is going to feel very slow. It’s gonna feel like you’re moving in slow motion, but when you put the music in and you edit it together, you have to build up that anticipation and you have to hit it right on the nail on the head. You can’t be a moment over. You gotta be right on the nose.’” Though she questioned the direction while in front of the camera, “after he put it together and edited everything, he was so right.”
With reporting from Gerrad Hall.
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: "AOL Entertainment"
Source: Entertainment
Published: September 13, 2026 at 09:09PM on Source: PRIME TIME
#ShowBiz#Sports#Celebrities#Lifestyle