Willa Fitzgerald

Willa Fitzgerald is an American actress born on January 17, 1991. She is best known for starring as Emma Duval in the MTV television series Scream. Her other prominent television roles include cheer coach Colette French in the USA Network drama series Dare Me and officer Roscoe Conklin in the Amazon Prime Video series Reacher. Fitzgerald has also appeared in Amazon Studios' political series Alpha House, USA Network's Royal Pains, Netflix's horror miniseries The Fall of the House of Usher, and the thriller film Strange Darling.

Fitzgerald was born in Nashville, Tennessee. She is the only child of musician parents who spent two decades performing in a band together prior to her birth. For her higher education, Fitzgerald initially studied psychology for three years before shifting her focus to drama. She ultimately earned a bachelor's degree in theater studies from Yale University.

Fitzgerald began securing regular screen roles between 2013 and 2014, playing Lola Laffer in the Amazon Studios political web series Alpha House, which ran for two seasons. In April 2014, she secured a recurring role as Emma Miller in the USA Network drama series Royal Pains. Between 2014 and 2015, she also made guest appearances in several television series, including Blue Bloods, The Following, and Gotham.

In August 2014, Fitzgerald was cast in the starring role of Emma Duval in MTV's Scream. The series was renewed for a second season in July 2015, which premiered in May 2016, before the franchise underwent a reboot with a new cast in 2017. Alongside her screen work, Fitzgerald has performed in theater productions, including Couple in the Kitchen, The Private Sector, Cow Play, and The Cat and the Canary. In January 2016, she played the character Beth in a two-episode arc for the go90 web series Relationship Status.

In August 2016, Fitzgerald joined the cast of Lucky McKee's feature film Misfortune, which was released in October 2017 under the title Blood Money. She was cast as Meg in the BBC miniseries adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's novel Little Women in July 2017, which premiered on Boxing Day of that year. In December 2017, she joined the film adaptation of Donna Tartt's novel The Goldfinch as Kitsey Barbour, which was released in September 2019. During this period, she also filmed two television pilots—Behind Enemy Lines for Fox as Navy pilot Roxanne Daly, and #Fashionvictim for E! as Anya St. Clair—though neither was picked up to series.

In July 2018, Fitzgerald was cast in the lead role of Dare Me for USA Network, which was ordered to series in January 2019 and ran for one season before its cancellation in April 2020. Her television work continued with an episode of the Netflix anthology drama Heartstrings in 2019 and a guest appearance in the sixth season of the TV Land comedy-drama series Younger. In March 2021, she was cast as Roscoe Conklin in the first season of Reacher, which premiered in February 2022. In June 2022, she was announced to star in Steven Brand's noir thriller film Joe Baby.