In Conversation with Former Disney Channel Star Matthew Scott Montgomery

Actor Matthew Scott Montgomery may be most recognizable for his role in the popular Disney Channel show So Random!, but since then, he has ventured into other areas of entertainment. Earlier this year, it was announced that he and several other Disney alums were teaming up for an epic LGBTQ horror film titled Howdy, Neighbor!

Directed by Sonny with a Chance’s Allisyn Snyder and featuring an all-star cast that includes Debby Ryan and Alyson Stoner, Montgomery plays Benjamin, a young queer Millennial actor living in West Hollywood who was once a famous child actor. When a new neighbor named Chase (Grant Jordan) moves in across the hall and reveals himself as a fan, Benjamin begins investigating the oddly familiar man with his best friend Harley (Ryan).

Of course, the subject matter is much more mature than what we’re used to seeing these former Disney actors do, but Montgomery guarantees the film will be worth a watch.

He caught up with OFM to talk more about Howdy, Neighbor!, as well as the passion behind his artistry and the revelation he made over the summer about undergoing conversion therapy.

I would like to begin by talking about your upcoming LGBTQ horror film, Howdy, Neighbor! Have you started production yet?

Yes, we are wrapped. Post is close to being done, and then we’ll start the selling process in January. Everyone on the team is very optimistic about selling it, and then hopefully we’ll have a release date soon after that!

You play the lead character, Benjamin, but you are also the film’s writer. How did the concept of Howdy, Neighbor! come about, and what was the inspiration?

Allisyn Snyder, who is the director of the film, we worked together on Disney Channel’s Sonny with a Chance and So Random! We’ve been looking for an excuse to work with each other again, and we have some similar aesthetics and things that we’re interested in. A lot of our friendship is like, “Have you seen this horror movie? Have you seen this? Do you watch this?” I had done a few plays here in LA that were Halloween-themed, like I would write this one act festival called Spook Night that I would star in every year, and Allisyn would come and see it. She was like, “If you ever write a feature, I want to direct it.”

Then the pandemic hit, and she was like, “Now’s the time to write a movie.” I wasn’t sure because I didn’t really have any ideas, but there was something that happened to my personal life in my building that inspired the story. So, Howdy, Neighbor! is about my character, Benjamin, who was on a kid’s television show growing up in the 2000s. He’s now living in West Hollywood, and a big fan of his moves into the apartment across the hall. The fandom starts as a friendship, and then it kind of turns into an obsession. A throwback to single, white, female stalker kind of movies, but with a campy, queer twist.

I was talking to Allisyn about this situation, and she’s like, “That’s your movie!” So, the movie is not necessarily a true story, but some of the elements are inspired by real-life events. Also, as an actor and writer, I always ask myself, “What kind of movie would I want to be in? What kind of part do I want to play? What kind of world do I want to live in?” I have always wanted to be in a horror movie, so I wrote the horror movie I would want to be in.

I am thrilled that numerous Disney alums are in this film including Debby Ryan, Alyson Stoner, and several of your So Random! castmates. How has it been working with everyone again?

It’s been so fun working with everybody. I mean, these people are like family to me. Debby is one of my absolute best friends and one of my favorite actors. She’s so talented and smart. We did a Zoom table read of the script with friends before we thought about casting, and Debby read the part of Harley, who is one of the leads. She was perfect! I had a hard time thinking of anyone besides Debby playing that part.

A couple days later, I texted her asking if she would be interested in playing the part if we actually did this. She was like, “I already told my reps about it. I want to do it; I’ve already started the conversation.” I was like, “Great!” And working with Debby, I learn a lot from her while one set. We have a natural chemistry, and there’s a flow to how we speak with each other. That’s in the movie as well because we’re playing best friends. It was easy to fall into that.

After Debby came onboard, everything else started to organically happen. We didn’t necessarily set out to cast all Disney alums; we were just thinking of our friends and people we were fans of. Casting wise, they all lined up. Kevin Chamberlin, who was on Jessie with Debby, plays my agent, and my So Random! co-stars Shayne and Damien have a fun cameo part. Then Alyson Stoner, who is also a good friend, we’ve been looking for a reason to work together as well. Everything started to fall into place with all these people, and everyone said yes. It was great to reunite on our own terms, and it was so much fun.

Would you say the concept of former child stars playing former child stars is a unique one to explore, since they have insights into the industry that many on the outside do not?

There are certain things that Debby, Allisyn, Shayne, Damien, Alyson, and I understand by growing up in the Disney machine. I had a very positive experience working for Disney, but there were a lot of unusual, strange pressures that came with it, or strange situations that only we can relate to each other with. We were sharing different stories while shooting, but this is a queer, campy horror movie, and you don’t have to be an actor to understand any of it. There are some fun little bonuses for hardcore Disney fans, and we made sure there’s a lot of scary, fun, silly, exciting things for everyone to enjoy.

I also read that Howdy, Neighbor! will incorporate elements of the emerging screen life genre. Can you talk more about that?

When Allisyn reached out to me about working on a feature together, she was really into the idea of screen life, which is where everything’s filmed on a phone or through social media, examples being Unfriended or Unfriended: Dark Web. Everything is done digitally, in a way. So, how Howdy, Neighbor! plays out as if you’re watching everything through my character’s phone. You’re watching texts happen in real time, voice memos, searching on social media, watching what people are posting, and footage from FaceTime calls we had with people. We thought it was a fun element to explore. There’s a timeliness about it, and then there’s a modernity about it as well.

Ultimately, what do you hope audiences take away from the film?

I hope audiences just have a good time with it. It’s equally funny as it is scary. I have a lot of friends who are like, “Oh, I don’t like scary movies. I’m too afraid to watch.” I’m like, if you sit through this, it’ll be worth it. We definitely have the screams in there, but we have some giggles as well. Also, I think something that’s exciting about the movie is that all our main characters are queer. However, there is no negativity, bullying, or slurs. Queerness is never a conflict or an obstacle that someone has to overcome.

I look forward to doing more work like that, where scary things happen to people who just happen to be gay, not because they’re gay. I sometimes get a little weary of films, horror films in general, where there’s a trope of bullying that’s happening or language that’s being used to remind queer people there’s terror because of their otherness. Howdy, Neighbor! has none of that. It’s just about a bunch of fucked up shit that happens to people who happen to be gay.

Why do you think LGBTQ people resonate with horror so well?

I think there’s a lot of reasons why LGBTQ people love horror movies. From my personal experience, I grew up in North Carolina, and I never truly felt safe. I felt safest when I was in a movie theater or secretly watching a VHS tape of Scream or I Know What You Did Last Summer after my parents went to sleep. There’s something cathartic about experiencing terror and screaming, and then the endorphin rush afterwards because you are comforted in knowing this is not real. Michael Myers seems much more comforting to me than any of the guys I went to middle school with growing up.

There’s, like, a safeness that comes with it, because it’s not real for a lot of queer people. The outside world is scary enough, and we don’t need to be reminded why. We’d rather see ghosts, possessions, and over-the-top stalker movies because it’s separate from the terror that we can actually experience. Also, this is a generalization, but it seems that in queer culture, especially gay men, we’re drawn towards things that poke fun at society or the world of camp. There are certain horror icons that live in a camp kind of world, like Freddy Krueger. We’re drawn to the cartoonish.

How did you fall into the crazy world of show business? Has this always been your passion?

I have always wanted to be an actor, whether I knew it or not. Growing up, I would secretly tape Will & Grace, and after my parents went to sleep, I would put the tape in, watch it, and I would write down the dialogue and try to match exactly how Debra Messing and Eric McCormack were doing it. I never knew being in the entertainment industry was an option. Where I come from, it was very much, you find what sport you’re good at; you go to college; you get a scholarship, and you get a wife and house. That’s the only thing I saw around me.

The older I get, the more I appreciate that little queer boy who would tape Will & Grace because whether I knew it or not, there was something within me that needed to express himself, and I would do that through sitcoms with queer characters. Whether it was Buffy or The O.C., I would always write out the dialogue, go to the mirror, and try to match everything the actors did. I would do my own little personal acting class in my mirror every night.

So, it was something that’s always been within me. When I moved out to LA, I got to work very, very fast. I felt like I had a lot of time to make up for, and I fell into theatre immediately. I was in a play that ran for a year, and then that led to being on the Disney Channel.

Earlier this year, you revealed that you underwent conversion therapy while shooting for Disney Channel. What made you want to open up about this?

When you’re a queer person, specifically for me, growing up in the South, there’s, like, a sense of duality you need to have to survive. You have to be a certain way and keep your true self hidden underneath. I honestly didn’t realize I was keeping this a secret because I compartmentalized it. When I was on Disney Channel, on my off days, I was in conversion therapy for three hours at this office in Encino. This was important to my parents and something that I did for quite a while, and I realized there were a lot of people in my life that didn’t know I had gone through that.

I realized that this was something I never mentioned or said publicly, and I was thinking about all the queer kids who didn’t have any role models growing up, like myself. I never saw a queer person unless it was a secret VHS tape of Will & Grace. When I realized this was something I never shared publicly, I was like, “I’m immediately posting something,” and it kind of took off in this way I didn’t realize or anticipate. A lot of my friends in the industry, a lot of queer actor friends that I admire so much, reached out and said, “I went through the same thing.” There’s more of us than you think, and it’s important for queer kids to know that there’s nothing wrong with them. Nothing needs to be fixed.

What are some future goals you hope to accomplish with your career and platform?

There’s a lot that I want to do. I would love to be in more horror movies, and I’m excited about making more queer content as well. There’s a queer horror short called Don’t Turn Off the Ghost Light that we shot recently, and hopefully, it will be going on the festival circuit. Allisyn also directed it, and it stars me and my friend Chris Renfro, who’s an incredible actor. They are so talented, and I loved working with them. I hope to work with them again.

As an actor, I think the ultimate goal for me—This is specific but it’s the truth—I want to be the comedic relief on a dramatic show that runs for a while, and then there happens to be a musical episode (laughs). That would check a lot of boxes! I have such a soft spot for theater, and I would love to originate a role on Broadway someday. I think that would be fantastic. I do a lot of musical theater here in LA, so I’d love to try and take that to the next level, if possible.

Also, doing more horror movies would be great. I think there’s something very sexy about dying in the first 10 minutes of a horror movie, like Drew Barrymore’s character in Scream. Let’s live that fantasy. There’s also something attractive about being a final boy, too. As for which one of those scenarios is true for Howdy, Neighbor!, you’ll have to see!

Stay up-to-date and connect with Montgomery by following him on Twitter @irobotyoujane, or Instagram and TikTok @matthewscottmontgomery. Follow Howdy, Neighbor! on Instagram @howdyneighborthemovie.

Photos courtesy of Steph Girard and Matthew Scott Montgomery