David Arquette is taking “full responsibility” for Courteney Cox’s controversial haircut in Scream 3. The third installment was trashed by fans and critics upon its release and time has not been kind to it either. Because of that, the movie gets made fun of a lot and Cox’s bangs are a frequent topic of conversation when discussing what went wrong with the Scream franchise. Even the actress has made fun of the haircut in the years since, noting that she looks “horrible” in the movie.
In a new interview, David Arquette talked about the origin of the bangs in Scream 3 and admitted that it was all his idea. At the time of Scream 3, which was released in 2000, Arquette and Courteney Cox were married and the actress was playing Gale Weathers for a third time. In 2019, Cox admitted that she wanted to have a different hairstyle in each movie, which meant she needed some ideas. Unfortunately, her husband had some advice. Arquette explains.
“The bangs were my fault. I have to admit, I was like, ‘Oh, you should do a like, Bettie Page thing, you know, just like, a little. That was my fault. Totally, I’ll take full responsibility. I mean they’re, you know, a professional hairdresser’s fault of course. And they didn’t really do Bettie Page kind of really blunt bangs. Like, that’s what the idea was. They tried to mess with them. You can’t. You have to go fully in. You can’t, like, halfway those kinds of things.”
Courteney Cox’s bangs in Scream 3 bear no resemblance to pinup model Bettie Page. Instead, it looks like someone took a hedge trimmers to her hair during a power outage. “The fact that people say, ‘forever on film,’ that is really true and it’s so bad,” she says. “I had these bangs and they were cut too short. At that time in my life, I wasn’t the kind of person who would say, ‘You know what? These are too short. We need to get new bangs.'” So, Courteney Cox left the bangs in and they’re forever in Scream 3.
While people like to laugh about Courteney Cox’s bangs in Scream 3, the actress learned something about herself from the incident. “I was just like, ‘Oh, well, okay, oh God, they don’t look great,'” Cox says. “In reality I should have said, ‘No, no, no we have to get new bangs.’ I did not stick up for myself and hence I look horrible. That was a big lesson-take care of yourself.” Cox can shrug it off now, but in future roles, she learned to step up for herself when it comes to her on-screen appearance.
David Arquette and Courteney Cox are preparing to return for Scream 5 as Deputy Dewey and Gale Weathers, respectively. Since the couple divorced in 2013, people have wondered how that will work on the set. “Well, we coparent. So, we’re in touch quite a bit. It’s great,” says Arquette. “But we always love working together… It’ll be fun to bring these characters back to life and see where they’re at… Costarring’s the easy part.” The interview with Arquette was originally conducted by Entertainment Tonight.
