Jenna Ortega plays a young adult Tara in Scream 6, though the film doesn't clarify her exact age. Ortega acted alongside Melissa Barrera for the second time in the Scream franchise. This time, Neve Campbell didn't return to play Sidney Prescott in Scream 6, so Tara and Barrera's character, Sam, took over as the dynamic duo final girls. While Tara is in college with her friends in Scream 6, Sam, her older sister, is a few years older and has been out of school for a while.
Scream has always been a little unclear with the characters' ages. Since Scream 5 and Scream 6 are requels to the original Scream franchise, they follow a similar timeline. In Scream, Sidney is a senior in high school, though her age isn't explicitly stated. In Scream 2, Sidney is a 'freshman' in college and likely about 19 years old. Scream 5 and Scream 6 put Tara around the same age as Sidney in the first Scream, also making her a high school senior. However, there are a few scenes in Scream 6 that may or may not contradict this.
Related: How Old Sidney, Gale & Dewey Are In Scream 2022
Tara Is Approximately 20-Years-Old In Scream 6
In Scream 5, Tara and her friends were still in high school, but when Scream 6 premiered a year later, they were all attending college in New York. Scream 6 sets the college scene by converting McGill University into the fictional Blackmore University and having Tara and her friends attend a college party at the start of the film. Given the time frame of Scream 6, Tara is approximately 20 years old, while Sam should be about 26.
Filming for Scream 6 took place from June to later August 2022. This would make Ortega only 19 at the time of filming since the actor's birthday is September 27th. However, she was only a few months away from turning 20, so she was not far off from Tara's age at all. Meanwhile, Barrera was about 32 when she was playing the mid-20s character.
RELATED: The Scream Movie & TV Series Franchise In Chronological Order
Tara & Sam's Ages Create A Scream Plot Hole
Scream has had some trouble throughout the franchise with sticking to a solid timeline. There have been a lot of continuity issues, and Scream 6 is no exception. According to dialogue in the film and the police murder board, the New York Ghostface killings occurred in 2023. This contradicts Scream 5, which takes place in September 2021, because Scream 6 is supposed to be one year after the events in the previous movie.
This creates a plothole in Tara and Sam's ages because Tara was a high school senior in Scream 5, so she should only be about 18 or 19 in Scream 6. If Sam was born in 1997, as her ID says, she would have been 24 in Scream 5 and only 25 in Scream 6. There's also another confusing continuity error in Scream 6 where Sam's phone shows the date as Saturday, October 29th. The 29th fell on a Saturday in 2022 and will be on a Sunday in 2023, making Scream 6 an unreliable source for Sam and Tara's ages.
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