Jasmin Savoy Brown’s been racking up impressive film and television credits for quite some time, but she skyrocketed to the top of the Collider Ladies Night guest bucket list in January 2022 courtesy of Scream.

Yes, there are many pre-Scream titles of Brown’s I’d highly recommend — The Leftovers, Laggies, and Sound of Violence being major standouts — but Brown carries one particular scene in Scream that quickly became a favorite scene of the franchise, and of all-time — the scene in which Mindy explains the rules of the new movie. It’s brilliant writing, but it’s also dialogue that only works in the hands of the most adept performer, someone who’s able to play into the comedic meta nature of the franchise while also respecting the fact that the series has amassed a slew of diehard fans. “To some people, the original is their favorite thing in the world, the movie that made them love horror, that mom or dad showed them when they were 10 that bonded them together.” That right there is me, and Brown delivers that dialogue in a way that’s both playful and reverential, and also sparks a feeling that very few scenes achieve; it suddenly feels like the whole world’s melted away and Mindy is talking directly to you.

Brown cemented her place on the Collider Ladies Night guest bucket list even further with Yellowjackets. In an ensemble packed with top-notch talent, Brown shines via Taissa’s determination and tenacity, and also the infectious love and warmth between her and Van (Liv Hewson). As things get darker (and colder) in Season 2, Brown soars while exploring the physical and emotional complexity of Tai’s situation, how it’s impacting her relationship with Van, her place in the group, and the person she’s becoming.

Want yet another reason Brown’s a must-have guest on Collider Ladies Night? Since skyrocketing in Hollywood via Scream and Yellowjackets, she’s using her ever-growing reach and platform to encourage positive representation. Brown’s a true force in this business, and one that’s changing it for the better, making her the ideal Collider Ladies Night guest.

Image via Showtime

While revisiting the early stages of her career, Brown explained why New York or Los Angeles wasn’t her first stop, but rather, Portland, Oregon:

“I was actually pretty strategic for an 18-year-old. I auditioned for school. I wanted to go to musical theater school, get a BFA. I didn’t get in anywhere. I got into one place, but I couldn’t afford to go there … So I thought, okay, I need to move somewhere and I’m just gonna give TV acting and film acting a try. I’ll find somewhere, take some acting classes. And I thought I could move to LA, I thought I could move to New York, and then I thought, no, then I’ll be a really small fish in a big pond. I should move somewhere smaller where I can become the big fish in the small pond. So I moved to Portland, Oregon, because, at the time, over 10 years ago, they’d get a few national commercials a year, had a few TV shows, and I thought I can do that. I can, in the two years I gave myself, work on every show and do a few commercials, and luckily I was right.”

After filming projects like Grimm and Lynn Shelton’s Laggies in the Portland area, Brown got her Screen Actors Guild card and that’s when she thought, “Alright! I did all I could here,” and made the move to LA.

Brown went on to score the role of Evie in the hit HBO series The Leftovers, and that meant working opposite an industry legend and all-around force for good, Regina King. Brown once referred to King as an early mentor, so I opted to ask Brown for an invaluable piece of advice she received from King that she’s since applied to her own career and craft. Here’s what she said:

“At the time [she] was telling me to be true to myself, just to stay true to me, and that is really helpful in this industry. There’s so much going on. As much of it is real, honest conversations, there’s just as much ‘make it look like you’re having a real, honest conversation,’ and it’s nice to keep the center of who you are.”

Image via HBO

Staying true to herself has clearly served Brown quite well, and that’s something another recent Ladies Night guest stressed. While revisiting a Collider Ladies Night conversation with Michelle Rodriguez during which Rodriguez emphasized the importance of never crossing certain lines for what might seem like beneficial career moves, Brown took the opportunity to add a layer to that concept; “My lines change depending on the seasons of my life.”

Brown continued by offering up a specific example:

“That could even be like a sex scene, for example. I think at the beginning of my career, I would have done pretty much anything. I’ve been disrobed a few times on screen because it made sense to me, but now when I think about it, there was a scene or two early on where that wasn’t really necessary, and so now, I’m just not going to unless I think it furthers the story. Or, in the case of Yellowjackets, when Van and Tai are swimming in the lake or whatever, that wasn’t necessarily necessary to see these two people without their clothes, but I thought it was a beautiful kind of important moment for queer representation in the sense of, we’re seeing these straight couples having sexy scenes or being naked all the time. How often are we seeing two female characters in an interracial relationship — I just thought that was a beautiful image, and it showed the intimacy of the relationship. I’m just thinking about it more now than like, ‘Yeah, I really want the job.’ It’s like, ‘No, does it further the story? Does it mean something to me?’”

Brown is now using that personal barometer and her storytelling ambitions to impact the projects she’s working on for the better. In fact, you can see the results of her choice to speak up on a particular matter on Season 2 of Yellowjackets.

“We’ve seen more scenes with Taissa and Akilah, and I’m definitely a part of that. Let’s be honest, if there’s two black girls in a group and they’re the only two, they’re gonna stick together, especially in a survival scenario. And Nia [Sondaya] and I both believe that that’s happening a lot more off screen than we happen to see on screen. But I’ve been championing that from the beginning that we see that and so it’s nice that that got taken into account.”

Image via Paramount

The Yellowjackets showrunners’ willingness to watch, listen, and make changes when necessary has strengthened the show in a number of respects along the way. A big one? Liv Hewson’s Van nearly died in Season 1, but thanks to the strength of Hewson’s performance, Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson not only kept the character in the mix but turned Van into a main player with a significant arc.

While discussing the Tai and Van connection, I asked Brown for the moment when she first felt that special spark from Hewson while working together as scene partners, a moment that made Brown stop and go, “There’s something special here that the show shouldn’t let go of.” Here’s what she said:

“All of the scenes with Liv are really fun. They like to improv sometimes, they bring a really special energy to set and to their character. We had a lot of fun. The first thing that comes to mind is the wolf attack, which is kind of ironic because that’s when they would be dead, so prior to that, I would say the first time that Tai and Van are making out against the tree and we’re just seeing a different side of each of them in private. It felt like the heart of the show in a way, and Liv brought that sparkle, that butch king energy that I see people calling Van online. It’s so funny. Someone said, ‘Imagine being Taissa Turner and you fumbled the bag with a sexy butch king in your teens and then also with a hot femme queen in your 40s.’ [Laughs]”

The chemistry between Brown and Hewson is undeniable, but the further we get into Yellowjackets Season 2, the more we see Tai and Van’s approaches to certain matters differ. A good example? The decision to eat Jackie at the end of Episode 2. While Van willingly indulges with the other surviving Yellowjackets, Taissa only partakes because she’s not in control, The Other is. What if The Other had been absent and that choice was Tai’s and Tai’s alone? Would she have eaten? Here’s what Brown thinks:

“That’s a really good question. You know what, that’s so interesting. I think her moral high ground would have had her wanting to say no, but I also think that she would have thought through, how are we gonna survive the winter? This might be our only option. I could see her going back and forth, but I could see her ultimately doing it or at least pretending to do it simply to not become Ben Scott. You can’t be the one who didn’t in a group like this, in a survival situation. You have to at least fake it so that no one gets mad at you, you know?”

Image via Showtime

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for TITLEHERE, Season 2, Episode 6, “Qui.”]Another matter Van and Tai don’t quite align on? Their belief in Lottie’s (Courtney Eaton) teachings and powers. Yes, Tai’s sleepwalking stopped when she started attending Lottie’s meetings, and yes, it does seem as though she managed to find Javi (Luciano Leroux) due to “something deep inside of [her] that is connected to all of this”, but is that enough? Brown doesn’t think so.

“I’m not convinced she believes, is the thing. I know people keep saying that, ‘Oh, well, when she says that Lottie cured her sleepwalking.’ I still think that she might think that was kind of a fluke. I’m not of the belief that Taissa fully believes. I’m just not.”

Possibly pushing Tai even further into non-believer territory? The devastating loss of Shauna’s baby.

“I’ve heard the showrunners say that Taissa is an atheist, if anything. If anything, she doesn’t believe in anything — spiritual, woo woo, whatever. And maybe she was open to it a bit with the Lottie of it all, but exactly, when the baby doesn’t make it, it’s like, ‘No, I was right. Nothing exists. We just need to survive. We just need to get through the winter.’”

We’ll have to wait and see what the future holds for Tai when Yellowjackets continues its Season 2 run with Episode 7 available to stream on Friday, May 12th. In the meantime, hear even more about Brown’s journey in Hollywood thus far, including loads on Scream 2022 and Scream VI in the uncut version of her Collider Ladies Night interview in podcast form below: