Exclusive Interview with Scream’s Bex Taylor-Klaus

You’ve probably seen her before on shows like Arrow, House of Lies and The Killing, but this summer, Bex Taylor-Klaus is well on her way to becoming a favorite among the MTV community.

Playing Audrey Jensen, a bi-curious teen troubled with recent killings (after being outed via the internet), on MTV’s Scream, Bex is easily one of the best parts about the show. She’s great to talk to as well!

I had the chance to talk to Bex about Audrey’s future, bi-erasure in the media, and even shipping!

Check out what she had to say bellow.

 

What made you want to become an actress? Did you have one specific person that inspired you?

“I never really had just one person that inspired me. My first thoughts ever about becoming an actor were that I wanted to do it. [Laughs]. An actor can portray so many people and I could do so many things, instead of just one. Your career is having several different careers if that makes any sense. An actor can go from being a doctor to being anything really. I love that.” 

You’re such a familiar face to me on the screen. I feel like I’ve seen you in so much, I’m an avid Arrow watcher so I saw you as Sin, and then I remember your role on House of Lies as Lex! I really love your work and it’s so nice to see you now on Scream every week as a main character. What’s been different about this role in comparison to the others that you’ve had?

“I think what’s most different is playing a traditional high school student. I mean all the other roles had something else going on. The fact that essentially Audrey is just a high school student. She’s a troubled genderqueer kid. With Sin, she was this whole superhero sidekick and then Bullet was a homeless teen. With them there was so much more going on. With Audrey you know there’s some other stuff going on obviously, but you have to remember that she’s just a typical 16-year-old.”

MTV lately seems to be really making a difference with matters like these; I never would have thought I rely on this station for LGBT representation. I think with your character Audrey it’s extremely important because so many times bisexuality/bicuriousness is swept under the rug and erased. How does it feel for you knowing that playing such a character could really help some people out?

“I love that; I think it’s really important. Bi-erasure is a thing that happens far too often and I think that it’s very important that MTV isn’t doing that; they’re doing the opposite. They’re bringing characters to life that don’t have a set label yet. It’s our job to really guide people into a world that is new for all of us. I love that because it’s really bringing attention to things, for everyone, even us as the performers. I love knowing what I’m doing could be making a difference in someone’s life.”

It was so nice in the pilot just to actually hear the words “bi-curious” spoken on TV on a mainstream network.

“Yeah! I had friends in the community that were so excited when they watched it. I got texts and calls thanking me for saying it. It’s such a small victory but it makes a difference.”

I think one of the most important relationships on the show is between Emma and Audrey. They had such a huge fan reaction on Twitter. As it was happening people freaking out about them. Did you expect for them to receive such great feedback?

“No, I honestly didn’t. It was so surprising and so cool to see all these people going “hey this is awesome! I like what you guys are doing. We want to see you together”. I’m like whoa, I completely forgot that people want this, and it was just really surprising and cool. [Laughs].”

I also love the dynamic between Audrey and Noah. You and John Karna have really good on-screen chemistry. Will we get to learn about more of their back story? How they became friends, or did you guys just kind of flesh it out on your own among each other?

“It’s so easy with John [Karna]! The chemistry was already there. I adore that boy with all my heart. He is fantastic! I call him a little ray of sunshine. He’s a great guy and when I’m working with him everything comes naturally; the friendship, the playfulness, and even the intensity. It just makes it so easy. We will generally talk about it [the back story] a bit, but it’s just so interesting to play with John because it all comes so naturally.”

[I mentioned how I talked to John about Comic Con]

“Yeah John’s awesome I’m glad you got to talk to him! It must have been a blast. You know Carlson [Young] and I missed Comic Con and we were so sad about that. We were worried too that people would think that we were off the show if we didn’t go. We were like “WAIT we’re not going anywhere yet!” [Laughs].”

Maybe you’ll get to go next year because I know Scream was picked up for a second season. Have you heard any other news from it, like do you know when you’ll start shooting again?

“Whoever’s left we’re coming back! [Laughs]. I don’t know anything about season two yet. We’re just waiting. We’re all really excited!”

I saw your snapchats the other day when you were trapped in LA traffic. I was on the 405 like last week and they literally had one lane open and I thought I had entered hell. Do you miss the simplicity of filming out in Baton Rogue? What was it like out there?

“I think that’s what hell is! [Laughs]. It’s a long line and then as soon as you get to the front you go back to the back. It doesn’t make any sense! In terms of traffic I don’t really miss Baton Rogue traffic either. It’s different. Everybody moves SO slow it’s like no one has to get anywhere as quickly as they do in LA. When you’re in a rush no body else seems to be.

It was really nice filming out there, Baton Rogue is really beautiful and even the storms were stunning to watch. At one point we had a tornado touch down near us and so all the girls got together and we huddled in Willa’s closet until it passed.”

A lot of times on scary movies we’ll hear stories about haunted sets do you have any scary stories from things that have happened on set?

“In episode four when the Scooby Gang (Emma, Noah and Audrey) goes to scope out the abandoned hospital it felt so creepy. It wasn’t exactly an experience with like the lights flickering and all that, but it just felt creepy. It felt like one of those places you’re just not supposed to be in. Then there’s this place in episode seven that everybody hated. It was an abandoned building and everyone hated it. At one point like a shelf dropped on someone.”

Have you ever taken anything home from the set like props?

“Costuming made me a duplicate of these pants that I really really like; they’re so comfortable I wear them a lot. I steal socks sometimes. [Laughs]. A few of us have just because it got pretty cold. As for props, not really. Everything is pretty much locked down and there’s not many duplicates. Mostly its just socks.”

 Maybe at the end one of you can take the mask! You can fight for it!

“Oh man, that mask is super super locked down! It’s the most important prop we have, no body even gets to touch it except for authorized people. I guess it was pretty expensive to make so it’s super exclusive.”

Do you guys just have one or are there duplicates?

 “I’m not even completely sure because the mask was under wraps for a while because we weren’t supposed to see it. Before the image of the mask was released they didn’t want anyone taking photos. They didn’t want photos to get leaked. We didn’t really know what the mask looked like until it showed up in a scene.

The first time I saw the mask it was terrifying! It was actually in episode five during the vigil scene. I turned around and there was our stunt guy standing in full costume. The new one is so twisted. I think they’re definitely going to start making versions of the Brandon James mask to sell for Halloween.

John brought back one of the little plastic ones they were giving out at comic con so I got to try that on! That was pretty cool. I have a picture with me in the mask. It’s not the real mask but it’s still pretty cool.”

Yeah! They were actually passing them out to celebrities at Comic Con to wear as a disguise to get through the streets without getting mobbed.

“That’s so awesome! That’s a perfect way to sneak across the floor if you’re super popular. Didn’t Daniel Radcliffe do that in a Spider-man suit once? That’s so awesome!”

I know you guys nerd out about Game of Thrones, are there any other shows you nerd out about?

“I’m still so behind! Everyone’s like really mad I haven’t caught up on GoT yet. I already know everything that happens because literally everyone has spoiled everything for me at this point. [Laughs]. In Baton Rogue we would get together and we would watch Naked and Afraid, Broad City and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

John was telling me that he ran into the guy who plays Dong [Ki Hong Lee] and he was freaking out! He just looked at him like “Okay, thanks man!” He was probably expecting people to recognize him from The Maze Runner.

We have a bunch of shows that we go through. John and I sat down and watched a lot of Teen Titans. We watched Penny Dreadful for a while. There was one character on Penny that we really really liked. But, then they destroyed him and we were not expecting that so after that I think we kind of gave up.”

I’ve talked to a lot of the cast and they all seem to have reached a consensus that you’re the social media guru of the cast. How do you do so well in keeping up with fans and everyone on Twitter and such?

“I spend a lot of time on social media.  I usually answer a lot of the cast’s questions about it. It’s really fun because they’ll come up to me and I’ll have to translate the Internet language. They had no idea what shipping was, so I had to explain that and OTP’s and BROTP’s. The biggest consensus is that john and I are BROTP’s and I agree! I think that works. My best friend thinks that Noah and Audrey should be together, we’re her OTP. [Laughs].

I love social media. I love having that medium to reach out and connect. Willa’s [Fitzgerald] probably the worst at it. She can get away with it because when she does post its something good. I think Carlson [Young] and John [Karna] are the funniest, and Amadeus [Serafini] likes to jump in and reply to people. That’s his biggest thing; he likes to respond to people and we all love watching fan videos.

We like to get together and watch videos people made. Rafael’s one of the coolest dudes on twitter, he’s an uber scream fan. @Wolfspidey is his handle I think, he’s awesome he makes the best videos.

I completely forgot about fan fiction! I don’t think we’ve found any yet. I think I need to look and send some to people like unwarranted without any context. [Laughs].”

You said in a different interview that Audrey get’s kind of “dark” in Tuesday’s episode (5). Without spoiling anything can you hint towards what else Audrey has in store for this season?

“We meet her dad in episode 5 too. That is really fun. We get into her character a little more. We start to look at her secrets and such. It’s fun to play all sides of her. It’s hard to say without spoiling anything, but I think last night’s episode is a pivotal point for Audrey’s storyline at least. It’s really fun to play her, and to discover the reasons why she “breaks”. She’s a very complex character.”

What episode do you think the fans will enjoy the most?

“Episode 10 is huge of course; it’s the final episode so it’s a big deal. I think episode 7 has some craziness going on. I totally forgot episode 7 until just now! [Laughs]. Shit goes down! It’s definitely crazy; it was the craziest to film to.

It’s the one with the abandoned building that everyone hated. It’s great and then episode 8 is solid because it’s dealing with what happens in 7 so that’s like the monster.

I really really like episode 7, some serious stuff happens I think you guys will really like it.”

 

 

Make sure to tune into Scream, Tuesdays at 10pm on MTV!