From Scream King to Frightened Fan: Matthew Lillard’s Haunted Halloween Journey

Matthew Lillard is no stranger to screaming audiences, but he lately finds himself on the other side of fear. Revealing an untold chapter of his life, Lillard shared with PEOPLE that one of his earliest gigs was working as a scare actor in a haunted house.

Chatting exclusively with PEOPLE ahead of the premiere of his chilling new film, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, the actor reminisced about his early career days. \\”I was a haunt actor at Knott’s Scary Farm when I was 19 years old,\\” Lillard, now 55, recalled. \\”And I ran around the asylum with my clothes ripped off and scaring people. And that’s one of my first jobs I ever had.\\” He gleefully added, \\”I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone that. That’s a PEOPLE exclusive.\\”

From Haunter to Haunted

Despite his spooky past, Lillard admits to being easily startled when visiting haunted attractions now. \\”Last year I went through a [haunted house] at Universal Studios […] and I was like, ‘Oh, this is going to be lame.’ It scared the bejesus out of me,\\” he confessed.

Lillard believes there’s an adrenaline rush that comes with being scared. \\”I think that that’s why [the horror] industry is so big and so popular. […] I think that people long to feel things, right? That’s why comedies are great, and horror movies are great, because you feel things sitting in a dark theater,\\” he elaborated. \\”And this [is] spooky season, like going to a haunt or going to a local haunted house. I mean, all of that is really why this is such a juggernaut of a holiday.\\”

A New Kind of Hotline

Lillard, who has additional screen time lined up in Scream 7 for 2026, is channeling his ‘scare-king’ appeal as part of a campaign with Exact Sciences, promoting Cologuard, a noninvasive at-home screening test for colon cancer.

The advertisement depicts Lillard alone at home, responding to an ominous knock at the door, only to encounter a delivery man cheerfully handing him a Cologuard test kit—emphasizing that getting tested doesn’t have to be terrifying. \\”Colorectal cancer is the number two killer of people in the world. And so I just feel like […] if I could do something, if I can lift the message and sort of change people’s perception of being tested, then it’s a win,\\” he explained.

Reporting based on the original article; quotes reproduced verbatim.