David Arquette Spills His Guts on The Quarry, the Scream Franchise, and More

Later this week, Supermassive Games will release its latest cinematic horror game, The Quarry. After sending all the kids back home, group of teenage camp councilors become stuck at a summer camp with a checkered past. After being abruptly abandoned by the owner of the camp, they’re left to fend for themselves as monsters, creepy hunters, and other threats hunt them down. As one might expect from a Supermassive game, it’s quite violent and any character can die based on the player’s choices.

The game stars a number of big name actors including Scream’s David Arquette. We caught up with the actor to talk about his experience of working on the game, the Scream franchise, Neve Campbell’s sudden departure from the horror series, and much more. You can also check out our review of The Quarry where we called it “a worthy successor to Until Dawn” and praised it for its tense story and risky gameplay.

The following interview is slightly edited for length and clarity.

Six months ago, I was in a movie theater watching this [holds up Blu-ray of Scream 5]. So, it’s such a weird coincidence. I never thought six months later, I’d be talking to you and that you’d be in a game, because that was all a big surprise a couple months ago. So this is super awesome.

David Arquette: Wow! Yeah, thanks, man! Thanks for getting the DVD too.

Yeah, of course. It was a great movie! Do you play video games or did you play video games growing up?

I definitely did growing up and I still do just not quite as much. I don’t have as much time and I play a lot of sports games mainly nowadays.

Yeah, I saw you were in an NFL game as a voice actor a long time ago and I think SSX was one of the other ones.

Yeah, Tricky. Yeah, I was Eddie! It was fun.

That’s crazy.

Yeah, I love video games, the whole culture, the whole world. It was funny. I just took my two boys to virtual reality, which is a whole different world, so cool. But then after that they still wanted to play more games. So I took them to an arcade and we were playing pinball. I was like, “You guys just played the most advanced video in the world and the most original.

There’s a place for everything. Now there’s even virtual reality pinball. So now you have a combination of it all. Right?

Oh my god, yeah!

Something that just came to my mind right. As I was about to start this interview, did you know Ghostface is in Call of Duty now?

No, I didn’t know that!

Yeah. You can buy him in the game and run around with mini Uzis, shooting people as Ghostface and stabbing them. And they got Roger back to do the voice of him too. So he’s quipping and stuff.

Oh my God! That’s cool. That’s so cool that Roger did that!

Yeah. So he’s jumping out of helicopters and stuff, doing all sorts of crazy stuff. It’s wacky, but I love it.

That is wacky. I love when things mash up and those worlds collide.

To pivot to this game, how did you get involved with The Quarry. Did you audition? Did they reach out to you and what made you interested in doing a video game? I’m sure It’s way different than when you did Tricky and NFL.

Well, they reached out to me, which was good because I hardly ever get jobs from auditions. I’m not great at auditions! I don’t know what it is. But yeah, they reached out to me and it was a really interesting experience. I just loved being a part of it and working with Supermassive and 2K was just a dream. We went to Digital Domain, which is this Hollywood live action studio where they scan you. I just geeked out on all of the art behind it, all these techs going. You could see the camera, you could see sort of a primitive version of your body moving around. I was just blown away by it.

Did that influence your performance in any way? Are you more hyper aware of your performance, because it catches everything, little twitches of the eyebrow and stuff.

I know. It’s really incredible, the art that goes into this and all the technology behind it. But no, I mean, it didn’t really affect … It was weird. I had my scenes opposite Justice mainly and it was during COVID, so we didn’t have everybody there at the time. You’ll go to slam down a car and it’ll just be like a sort of framing of the rigging and stuff like that. So it was interesting, there’d be tennis balls for the people that weren’t there and that kind of thing. It was an interesting experience though. My favorite part was just all the art and everything that goes into it. But as far as performance goes, no, not really. That part was like acting. It actually went faster than I expected. I’m not a playable character in it, which is unfortunate, but who knows if there’s a future.

That would be cool!

It’s up to the player to see who survives and which character you play and there’s all of these different avenues you can go down. And there’s so many options within this game and you can watch it like a movie, which is pretty interesting too.

Yeah. I haven’t gotten a chance to do [Movie Mode] yet. I beat the game yesterday. A lot of people died in my play through, unfortunately. 

[laughs] You won, you still beat the game!

I beat the game!  I still got some people out alive.

That’s good! You could always replay, there’s all these other options.

Yeah, I’m probably going to go back through before I write my review.

[Supermassive] explained it in this really interesting way. They did it this spoke, like a wheel, and there’s all these different options that splinter out to all these different finishes.

Yeah, it’s interesting. When we’re all watching horror movies, I think we all say, “Why would you go in that room? Why’d you trip over that rock?” And now the game’s like, “You think you’re so smart? Go ahead.” And as we know, I’ve failed miserably to live up to my own expectations.

[laughs] Totally! I think that’s part of the fun of horror movies and horror video games, it’s all the fun of being scared with none of the repercussions.

Yeah! This is a game that features a lot of gory deaths,is there a death in a movie or game that is burnt into your mind, not including Dewey in Scream?

Yeah, for sure. I think my favorite death in a film was Paul Reubens killing me in Buffy the Vampire Slayer because I became a vampire, which is really fun. And I died twice in that movie, I get electrocuted at the end, which is horrible, something like that. So, I’d say Buffy the Vampire Slayer was my favorite just because I’ve become friends with Paul ever since.

That’s awesome.

Someone turns you into vampire, you’re like bonded for life… or eternity!

That makes sense. It’s a very intimate experience, right?

[laughs] Yeah!

What was it like playing kind of the inverse of the very charming likable, sometimes badass guy in Scream to now a very grumpy, mildly sketchy guy in this game? You got some range. I’ll say that.

Actually, he’s just trying to warn these kids. They got to get out! Typical teens in a horror film, they don’t do the right thing. They just make bad choices that lead to bloody consequences.

Absolutely! You got to work with Ted Raimi who obviously worked on and is the brother of one of the legends in horror with Sam Raimi and Evil Dead and all that stuff. Did you guys talk about horror movies at all and your experiences on big franchises like that?

We talked a little. I wish I would’ve been able to talk with him more. It was a COVID situation. So we never got to work together, but we did this really fun first play of the game. And we saw some of the scenes and we did talk a little about stuff like that. He’s a wonderful actor.

He’s absolutely terrifying in this game.

Yeah! He’s terrifying. He really is. When you get really great actors like him and in a game like this, they really can scare you. It can really elicit emotion, which is, I think, the whole idea behind this, why they got such a wonderful group of actors to be a part of it.

My favorite movies are the Spider-Man movies directed by Sam Raimi. And so I know him as the lovable dork in The Daily Bugle that pops his head in and makes wise cracks. So to have the 180 now of him as a scary cop, it took me by surprise. Another guy that’s got some range.

He’s very good, he’s super talented.

Do you think big name actors are becoming more accepting of video games as roles and stuff now that I think the storytelling has advanced and there’s more to do with acting beyond the voice? You are doing a full blown performance. Do you think that’s becoming a more widely accepted thing across Hollywood?

Yeah, definitely. As far as people sort of in my age range or, or even younger, I mean, we grew up with video games, so it’s been a part of our lives and part of our entertainment spectrum. So to be able to be a part of it was really a dream come true. I love video games. So to be able to be in one is just so interesting, and one on this scale with all these different actors and how it’s almost cinema … It is incredibly cinematic and then it opens up the world. I mean, I don’t know if you could play it with a headset on yet, but that’s next, easy. And that whole world is so interesting. I just went to virtual reality and went on Google Earth and found the house I grew up in. It’s just so bizarre to be able to do that nowadays. It’s like you’re living in Inception or something.

I think Super Massive, their formula for this kind of game would translate very well to a Scream video game. I don’t, I don’t know about you. That was something I was thinking about when I was playing. I’m like, “They could really pull this off, I think.”

Absolutely! I think they could pull it off really easily in a wonderful way by just re-shooting some stuff. It’s literally like you scan some people in there, you can do different versions of different movies and you could do all kinds of stuff. It would be a wonderful experience. I would love that! Ghostface is already in that world, so it’s not that hard.

Did you speak to Hayden Panettiere about this game. She worked on Until Dawn, which was another Supermassive game. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it.

Oh wow, I didn’t know she was in that! No, I have little kids in the house, so I’m going to have to play this game at night, for sure.

It’s cool. It’s a lot like this one where it’s on a snowy mountain and there’s a bunch of teens in a horror situation. Rami Malek is in it, along with a bunch of other people.

Oh wow, cool!

Just 10 minutes before we hopped on here, I don’t know if you got a chance to see this, Neve Campbell said she’s not coming back for Scream 6. She said “I felt the offer that was presented to me did not equate the value I have brought to the franchise.” I’m wondering what your thoughts are on that?

I’d love for her to be a part of it. A Scream movie without Sidney is kind of unfortunate, but I understand her decision. It’s all a business in a way, they have to balance all these elements to fit a budget and produce a film. I get it, she’s still alive! She [can] absolutely be in future ones, but I think it’s up to fans to call for that in the future.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to catch you off guard with that. I know that’s very sudden.

That is sudden. It’s a business, so you have to understand both sides of it. I respect her decision, for sure.

Are you looped in on what’s going on with that movie? I know you’re obviously very dead.

No, I’m not looped in! I keep seeing these sort of announcements and… [mimics crying noises]. I love playing that character and being a part of all those films, but I have so many wonderful memories working with Wes and I wouldn’t change it for the world. Yeah.

Would you be open to playing like a ghost or something kind of like Skeet did or do you like the finality of it all?

I do like the finality. I think there’s something really that really sort of connected with fans and made it a truly emotional experience. So I don’t know, but you never saw me dead either, so…

[laughs] Okay! I don’t know, It looked pretty gruesome!

[laughs] Yeah, it’s pretty bad. But the body bag, I always told them that, you never opened the body bag! He was the chief of police at one point, so I’m just saying!

Finally, you’re a big beacon of positivity and warmth across social media and your career and stuff. Where does that come from for you and how do you maintain that as we’re going through some pretty dark times and heavy stuff right now?

Yeah. It’s hard to. You get down, at least I get down a lot. So I’ve found that exercise really helps. Doing something creative really helps, surrounding yourself with people that you really enjoy and have a good time with, that you can laugh with. Staying busy is really important for me as well. It’s a trying time for sure, but we will get through this and you have to kind of remain positive. There’s an amazing book [called Man’s Search for Meaning] by Viktor Frakl. It’s a book about the Holocaust, but it’s sort of during one of the bleakest times in our history. He’d realized that it’s humor and human connection that really keeps us grounded. 

If you can try to stay sort of engaged in life and make it through the hard times… there’s a Winston Churchill saying, “If you’re going through hell, just keep going.” You know? And I butchered that quote, but it’s important to do that because life’s a gift and you have to really find the joy in it. Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes you go through some dark moments, but it’s really important not to beat yourself up, I’ve learned, and to do your best and get sleep. Sleep is really important.

That’s a very thoughtful answer. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate all your work and your positivity. We need a little bit more of that in the world.

Thank you so much, I appreciate you!

The Quarry is out on June 10th, 2022 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC.