Freddie Prinze Jr. almost quit acting after a difficult experience on the sets of I Know What You Did Last SummerThe film that helped launch his career.
The actor recalled the conflicts he had with the director Jim Gillespie Who made shooting the 1997 slasher a “miserable” undertaking in an interview so fab — but added that he was grateful that Gillespie was an “asshole” because it prepared him for “every little hole in the business.”
Prinze Jr. claimed Gillespie liked jeremy sisto Ray Bronson for the role, but the studio and writer Kevin Williamson pushed to cast him instead. “There was no passive aggression, which I hate. He was very straight [with] The fact is, ‘I don’t want you in this movie,’ Prinze said.
Everett Collection Freddie Prinze Jr. in ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’
Prinze said that Gillespie would give him “psychotic notes” (“Don’t leave your mouth open. You look stupid when you do that”) and “made it a point to tear me apart every time” when he spoke to others. When they gathered, they were thrown out. To provide notes to the actors before shooting. “It was very difficult to wake up in the morning – or afternoon, because we shot a lot of nights – and go to work with the right attitude,” he said.
The actor shared that he almost quit the film after a “near-death experience” while filming on a motorboat for the horror film’s finale. “I almost caught a flight and went home. I was done. I’d had enough,” he said. “He broke a ton of union stuff that he shouldn’t have, like union rules. All kinds of things. And I just felt like if I’m not wanted here, screw it up. There are other things Which I can. I dropped out of Le Cordon Bleu to make this movie. I’ll be a chef, my mother wanted me to be anyway.”
“I wanted to fight that guy two or three different times,” he said of Gillespie.
supporting co-stars Ryan Phillippe And Sarah Michelle Gellar, who would become his wife, helped an otherwise miserable experience, Prinze said. But he is also fully aware of the positives that came from the film. He said, “I am not upset because that film started my whole career.” “I wouldn’t have anything without that movie. I wouldn’t have a wife, I wouldn’t have all the other movies that I’ve done.”
Jesse Grant / Getty for Paramount+ Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr.
While it was a “struggle to make ends meet every day,” Prinze is “forever grateful to Jim for being such an asshole because I’ve never met one like that,” he said. “I’m sure he’s the hero in someone else’s story. I’m sure he helped someone else and they loved him. But for me, he took a lot of frustration out on me. He was a first-time director, he He didn’t have a lot of time, he didn’t have the budget he wanted, he didn’t have the actors he wanted, and he didn’t know how to deal with that frustration.”
EW has reached out to Gillespie’s rep for comment.
EW confirmed last month that Prinze and costars Jennifer Loves Hewitt are in talks to reprise their roles for A IKWYDLS sequel, Other details are unknown as the project is still in early development, but Jennifer Caitlin Robinson (take revenge, someone great) is connected to Direct. The original film followed four friends bound by accident when they run over a stranger and dump his body overboard. When they meet again a year later, he receives a threatening letter from someone with knowledge of the incident and is soon terrorized by a hook-wielding killer.
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