Actor Freddie Prinze Jr. said in a Wednesday interview that he was “miserable” while filming cult classic horror movie “I Know What You Did Last Summer” in 1997.
The movie was Prinze Jr.’s first major role in a motion picture and launched his acting career, Deadline noted. In an interview with TooFab, the actor said he was “miserable” throughout production after clashing with the film’s director, Jim Gillespie.
“There was no passive aggressiveness — which I hate — (the director) was very direct in the fact that, ‘I don’t want you in this movie,’ So when that’s your first job and you hear those words, it just wrecks you, man. It just wrecks you,” Prinze Jr. told the outlet. “It was very difficult waking up in the morning – or in the afternoon, because we shot a lot of nights – and go to work with the right attitude.”
On his own podcast, Prinze Jr. said that filming “I Know What You Did Last Summer” was “a struggle every day.” Part of that struggle included a near death experience that occurred while shooting a scene on a boat.
“I almost caught a flight and went home. I was just done. I had enough. They had broken a ton of union stuff that they shouldn’t have done, like union rules and all kinds of things. I packed my bags that night. I was gonna just quit the business,” Prinze Jr. told TooFab.
More than 25 years later, Prinze Jr. credits the film with being the reason he met his wife, Sarah Michelle Gellar. “In hindsight, I’m not upset. In hindsight, the movie launched my whole career… I wouldn’t have my wife (Gellar), I wouldn’t have all the other movies that I’ve done… I’m here because of that struggle and because of that pain.” (RELATED: ‘I Know People Who Never Recover From It’: Seth Rogen Spills On The Fragility Of Hollywood)
Gillespie also denied disliking Prinze Jr. in a 2017 interview with Digital Spy. “Nobody wanted Freddie; they thought he was too soft, he wasn’t muscular enough, so Freddie probably screen-tested four or five times. He got to the point where he was saying, ‘I’m done,’ and I really had to plead with him to stick with it because I wanted him. I thought he was going to be great with it.”
While the TV show “I Know What You Did Last Summer” didn’t get picked up for a second season on Amazon Prime (total shame; it was amazingly trashy and fun), a sequel to the movie is apparently in the works, according to another Deadline report.
You can watch the full interview with Prinze Jr. here: