Roger L. Jackson

The caller in Scream (1996) sounds friendly enough to keep the conversation going. Jackson lets that friendliness turn menacing, making the earlier charm unpleasant in retrospect. We were frightened by the opening because his voice makes the threat feel close even when it comes down a telephone line. He has performed these exchanges live on set, often hidden from the cast, giving the other actor someone to answer rather than adding his voice afterwards. Wes Craven uses that closeness to stop Kevin Williamson’s horror jokes from making anyone seem safe, though the script occasionally spends too long explaining them.

His translator device in Mars Attacks (1996) led to Scream, and Scream 2 (1997) confirmed the voice as a recurring part of the series. Alongside it came Mojo Jojo in Craig McCracken’s The Powerpuff Girls (1998–2005), and the Cheshire Cat and Mad Hatter in American McGee’s Alice (2000). Being so persuasive as Ghostface also became a restriction, with threatening roles a recurring offer.

By Scream VI (2023), the performance has hardened. Jackson drops the playfulness and keeps the contempt, a useful change for a film whose set pieces work better than its conversation. There is less pleasure in keeping someone talking, and more hostility towards whoever has answered. It gives the calls an edge, but it cannot do much for the tired dialogue elsewhere or the weak mystery.

In Scream 7 (2026), with Williamson directing, Jackson is still asking questions down the line while the writing supplies too little reason to care about the answers. The suspects are too easy to spot, and the familiar voice cannot make them more intriguing. We would not blame Jackson for a script that has so little left to ask him to do, but familiarity alone no longer frightens us. Start with Craven’s Scream, where the jokes never quite let us relax.