Kevin Williamson

Overview

Born
March 14, 1965 · New Bern, North Carolina, USA
Birth name
Kevin Meade Williamson
Height
6′ 0½″ (1.84 m)

Biography

Family

Parents

Trademarks

Most of his films involve a character named "Casey," such as Scream (1996), Scream 2 (1997), Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998), and The Faculty (1998).
His work consists of teen characters who are movie fanatics and make constant movie references.

Trivia

Favorite movie is Halloween (1978). He's said that the movie is the reason he started writing.
Kevin based the villainous character in Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999) on a teacher who screamed at him in front of the class and told him something he wrote was lousy and that he shouldn't be writing.
In college, he wrote a 45-minute one-act play about a teenage girl being terrorized by a killer over the phone. This would later become the opening scene of Scream (1996).
One of the few screenwriters to get credited on film posters.
He originally wanted to direct Scream (1996), but Bob Weinstein made him take a "director's test" to prove he could do it. He filmed the bathroom scene with the killer wearing Michael Myers' mask and cast Selma Blair, Rose McGowan, and Devon Odessa. Wes Craven was later chosen as director. Rose McGowan went on to be cast as Tatum in Scream (1996), Selma Blair would have a voiceover role in Scream 2 (1997), and Williamson became involved in the production of Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998).

Quotes

I'm not a real writer; I'm a screenwriter.
Dawson's Creek has always been very personal and autobiographical; I live and breathe in all the characters...Dawson represents the filmmaker and dreamer, the Spielberg-obsessed idealist who views the world optimistically; Joey represents more of the cynical, angry side as well as my roots and upbringing; Pacey represents the joker in me; and Jen, the rebel. This year we added two new characters to the mix: Andie represents my overachieving, sometimes-manic personality and, in Jack, I wanted to create a character to represent my sexuality, which is my greatest asset in life...
"I always wanted to direct. That's my passion. I was an actor. That went nowhere. I tried directing theatre. Nope. I wrote this movie called 'Killing Mrs. Tingle.' Sold it. It sat on the shelf. My unemployment dried up. I couldn't get work. I had borrowed money from all my friends. I wrote 'Scary Movie' [later retitled: Scream]. Just banged all it out, as fast as I could." - His success story.
I like emotional horror. I don't like horror movies. I hate them. But, if you can make emotional horror movies, I'm in. If I can care and root for the main character, then I'm in. I don't like stupid stories about people I don't know. There is a slew of low-budget horror films out there, where you just don't give a crap. But, once in awhile, something will come along, like "Halloween" in 1978, and there's this one girl, Jamie Lee Curtis, who's that young, sweet girl, in the midst of all of this, and you just root for her and feel for her, all the way through the chase scene. You have to figure out how to do that and care for the characters.
[after Dawson's Creek (1998) was turned down by Fox] "It went away and my life was over. I went and got a dog and named him Dawson. I thought that would be my only memory of this script."