After a breakthrough moment in “Yellowstone” prequel “1883,” May kicks off a new phase for the slasher franchise — and her career.

Successor to Scream’s queen: Isabel May on playing Neve Campbell’s daughter and carving her path through Hollywood

After a breakthrough moment in "Yellowstone" prequel "1883," May kicks off a new phase for the slasher franchise — and her career.

By Nick Romano

Nick Romano is a senior editor at ** with 15 years of journalism experience covering entertainment. His work previously appeared in *Vanity Fair*, Vulture, IGN, and more.

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February 26, 2026 9:00 a.m. ET

Isabel May. Credit:

Eric Ray Davidson

- Isabel May opens up about playing the daughter of Neve Campbell's Sidney Evans (formerly Prescott) in *Scream 7*.

- On her character being named after Rose McGowan's Tatum: "I didn't understand initially how impactful that was, and then I watched the films..."

- May recalls some of the career bumps that led to a new phase in her career, including the *Wonder Twins* movie that fell apart.

Isabel May feels like an actress from a different era. A breakthrough performer from *Yellowstone* prequel *1883* and soon to be seen in this weekend’s *Scream 7*, she pushes against the term “Renaissance Woman,” though it’s hard not to think of her as such.

The two things she can’t live without are music and books. “Everything else could go away and I'd be fine,” the rising star tells ** on a Saturday morning over Zoom in February, during a break while visiting her grandfather in Florida. Her tastes for both are equally expansive. The Santa Monica native, 25, considers herself “a classical music buff”; most recently, a friend gifted her a recording of a Jean Sibelius piece from 10 years ago. But May also routinely devours Tool, Nine Inch Nails, and jazz albums from Miles Davis.

As for novels, she maintains “a very large bookshelf” that she’s quite proud of, “with every kind of book that you could possibly imagine on it.” Reading often inspires her to write short stories that imitate the voice of an author. She did that notably after reading J. D. Salinger’s *The Catcher in the Rye*. “I started to find that I had my own little writing voice, my own little tone,” May says. “And I still do it. It's a really wonderful way to disappear.”

In some ways, that’s why May gravitated toward art as early as age 7. It’s pure escapism. The way her child self saw it, if she had a book in her hands, people were less inclined to bother her. She wasn’t trying to escape from anything in particular; rather, she describes an inability to connect with people the way she wanted. May also currently refrains from social media, though that decision is partly about protecting her privacy and authenticity.

“It feels false to me,” May says of her own experience posting. “I'm, like, allergic to that feeling and [it] made me feel uncomfortable with myself, like I was projecting something that was untrue. I couldn't help but reject that.” She doesn’t begrudge anyone the feeling of community or discovery that the internet so easily offers. But, she worries, “If you feel like your whole world revolves around who you are online, then that's a real issue.”

In that spirit, “I always try to unground myself,” May notes. “I go running around, and I find activities that are a bit wild and challenging.”

Isabel May as Tatum Evans in 'Scream 7'.

Courtesy of Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group

It’s a philosophy that has worked well for her professional life, too, though now it’s become harder to keep the world at arm’s length. Much like how *Yellowstone* mastermind Taylor Sheridan became inspired to cast May in the prequel series *1883* as the now-fan-favorite Elsa Dutton based off her previous test for a different show, *Mayor of Kingstown*, *Scream 7* writer-director Kevin Williamson reached out to the blonde-haired California beauty about playing the daughter of Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott, the character that launched a meta slasher franchise.

It felt wild and challenging to May, who says she ignored horror in the past — not for the genre’s lack of effectiveness or inventiveness, but more so for her basic human response to it. “Blood and guts are a little horrifying,” she admits.

*Scream*, however, felt a bit different. The first movie will always land high on her personal ranking of these movies, having now watched the whole saga after landing the job, but — and she admits this may be a controversial statement — she gravitates toward the Hollywood setting of movie 3. “The fact that they leaned so camp in that film is what made me enjoy it so much,” she continues. “It was an interesting reflection on celebrity and fame and all of that, as well, which I thought was quite cool. And I think no one beats Parker Posey.”

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May will now carve out her own place in *Scream* history with the role of Tatum Evans. Off camera, during the timeline of the past few installments, Campbell’s Sidney Prescott got married to police officer Mark Evans (Joel McHale) and started a family in the small town of Pine Grove, Ind., a suburb with visual echoes of Woodsboro. Tatum is now the same age her mother was back when original Ghostfaces Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) and Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard) embarked on a killing spree through Sidney’s hometown. It’s here at this time that a new masked murderer emerges with Tatum as their new target.

May’s character is, of course, named after Rose McGowan’s Tatum Riley, Sidney’s high school bestie who died during the events of 1996’s *Scream*. The tribute is actively addressed in the movie itself. During a televised sit-down interview with Gale Weathers (the returning Courteney Cox), Sidney refers to the original Tatum in *Scream 7* as “a childhood friend whom I loved dearly” and “the last friend I ever trusted.”

Isabel May on set of 'Scream 7' with director Kevin Williamson.

Before meeting Williamson — who penned *Scream*, *Scream 2* (1997), and *Scream 4* (2011) — May traveled to an office to read a script for 7 with the ending redacted. “It said Tatum from the beginning,” May recalls. “I hadn't seen the films yet. I didn't understand initially how impactful that was, and then I watched the films, realized the connection, did my own research online, realized how beloved that character is, and felt really honored. I thought it was such a smart choice.”

If there was anything May was allowed to be deeply involved with, it was Tatum’s music tastes. A Duran Duran poster can be seen on the teen’s bedroom wall, handpicked by May and cleared through legal. She made an entire character playlist for Sidney’s progeny, including songs from Hayley Williams and Canadian indie rock band Mother Mother. May remembers sharing this playlist with costar Sam Rechner, who plays Ben Brown, Tatum’s boyfriend, even if he didn't have the reaction she was expecting. “He was so excited to hear it and get into the world, and he took it really seriously,” May says. “He listened to my playlist. He went, ‘I hate all of these songs.’”

She wanted to lean into the nostalgia that feels embedded in *Scream 7*, especially with the returns of franchise vets Lillard, Scott Foley, and David Arquette alongside Campbell and Cox. “There's something really sexy and dark about *Scream* that's so fun to explore, and then [Tatum’s] a teenager and she's at that point where she's frustrated and kind of angry and hormonal,” the actress explains. “So I wanted to find songs that reflected what it feels like to be a young girl in this day and age, to a degree.”

That’s pretty much the extent to which she can discuss what *Scream 7* is actually about. Paramount only opened up general screenings to film reporters and critics a couple days prior to the movie’s Feb. 27 release. As with every one of these murder-mystery whodunnits, there are many surprises and twists that can easily be spoiled. But as May talks about her desire to stay off social media and live in reality, there is a common throughline with the sequel about what we see on our phones and how real (or not) it may be.

“It seems to me what the *Scream* films have done is project the social anxiety of the time,” May muses on the matter. “What right now in the world are people anxious about? How do we incorporate it into the story? This is the seventh one, so what is that now? I do think Kevin and Neve, who's very involved in the process as well, wanted that to be an element of the story. Whatever we are fearful of in this technological age had to be involved in the story, because we wanna look back on a *Scream 7* film 10 years from now and be able to reflect on how we felt at that time.”

May remains levelheaded in this moment of her career, on the eve of the new *Scream*’s debut in theaters, as an actress who can now say she's been sought out by filmmakers. She reflects on a three-year period in her early teens when, despite plenty of auditions, she wasn't booking any acting jobs. With her parents' backing, May took the risk of leaving traditional schooling to shift to online education so she could pursue this career option with more purpose. Six months later, she landed her first professional gig as one of two leads on Netflix sitcom *Alexa & Katie*.

Isabel May as Elsa Dutton on '1883'. Emerson Miller/Paramount+

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Even then, May didn’t consider herself a professional actor. “I just felt like I needed to learn more and do more and act more,” she shares. “I was a little embarrassed to call myself one because you're either a successful actor or a struggling one. There's nothing in between. I didn't want people to go, ‘Oh, that's cute.’ It felt kind of derogatory. It felt like someone was making me feel small. So my whole objective, my entire career now, is to not feel that way and to be taken seriously and find myself in a situation where I can call the shots.”

May’s has already learned a lot of lessons in her relatively short time in the business that can take many actors their entire lives to discover. In particular, she has the most sympathy for performers who work on a project just for a day, something she did with Jenny Slate and Charlie Day rom-com *I Want You Back* and various times on *Young Sheldon*.

“I've never been more nervous in my life,” May says of the surfer movie *Age of Summer*, for which she appeared as the unnamed “Missing Poster Girl” after failing to land the lead part due to a general lack of surfing skills. “You're not really a part of the machine that's been operating every day for years or months or weeks. And then you're expected to just do it real quick, not slow anything down. So that taught me so, so much to have empathy for the people that you're working with who are in those situations, but also to have resolve and confidence.”

Perhaps her biggest lesson followed her stay in the *Yellowstone* universe. “After having this major high with *1883*, every project I jumped onto after that, obviously out of my control, seemed to collapse,” she says.

*Wonder Twins* was one of those instances. May was to star opposite *Riverdale* alum K.J. Apa in an HBO Max movie based on the titular superheroes, shapeshifting alien siblings Zan and Jayna. When new leadership took over the parent company Warner Bros., the project was axed.

Eric Ray Davidson

“I was not familiar with that whole world of DC and all that stuff,” May remembers from that time. “People told me it was a big gig and I went with it. I thought it was actually really funny, and I really liked the creative team behind it. I've worked with K.J. since then.” (The two filmed the upcoming rom-com *Falling*.) “He was just a gem of a human, and I adore him. You get flown out, you try on costumes, and suddenly, like a week after the announcement, you get a call from the director saying, ‘Well, David Zaslav [Warner Bros. Discovery CEO] is in power now and all of these things have shifted and he doesn't wanna do this film.’”

May bears no ill will toward that decision, but it coincidentally happened again on another unrelated, undisclosed project shortly after. “I got the job, went through this process of your deal being set up, and then it just phased into obscurity because of the writer strike and the actor strike and all these things that kept happening,” she says of this mystery role. It was only on a trip to London, prompted by the Hollywood strikes, when May emerged from a wallowing period of self-pity and felt a new jolt of motivation to act. “Most things fall apart and you have to be okay with that,” May says of her realizations. “You have to be capable of just taking the punch on the chin, standing back up, walking forward, stepping into the next one.”

Starting with *Scream 7*, this year will begin to roll out everything May’s been working on since that reflective period. She shot movies with Hollywood’s new Superman David Corenswet (*Mr. Irrelevant*), Jennifer Lopez (*The Last Mrs. Parrish*), and Cynthia Erivo (*Karoshi*). She's still learning through these experiences with big-name talent. Campbell, in particular, reinforces May's own personal feelings about prioritizing her private life. The actress commends her costar for being "so rooted in her reality," adding, "She's a serious actor. She cares deeply."

She similarly heaps praise onto Corenswet, Lopez, and Erivo, all of whom have different feelings about social media and helped shape May's own outlook on what it means to be a celebrity now in the modern age.

"What matters is the craft," she says. "That is the objective always. If you start to focus too much on the celebrity aspect, you'll find that you're slipping farther away from craft. So you always have to refocus your attention on work and artistry and doing those things well. I guess part of being an artist is just being a student forever, which is what makes it so great and so frustrating."

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