Freddie Prinze Jr Wanted To Fight I Know What You Did Last Summer Director For Making His Life Miserable On Set

Freddie Prinze Jr doesn't have fond memories of making the 1997 slasher I Know What You Did Last Summer. 

Speaking to Toofab.com about his new horror movie podcast, That Was Pretty Scary, Prinze, 47 said he didn't get along with that film's director Jim Gillespie. 

The reason? Prinze wasn't Gillespie's first choice to play one of the four friends who were targeted by a serial killer. The other characters were played by Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ryan Philippe and Sarah Michelle Gellar. 

According to Prinze, Gillespie had wanted Clueless' Jeremy Sisto, but the studio and writer Kevin Williamson prefered Prinze — and Gillespie wasn't too thrilled about it. 

"It's not that we weren't on the same page, I knew what the correct choices were for the Ray character," Prinze explained. "He wanted a different actor, a really good actor named Jeremy Sisto, who I know and I like and respect very very much."

"I'll give the man this, I think his name is Jim, he made no bones about it," Prinze recalled. "There was no passive aggressiveness — which I hate —- he 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."

Gillespie's cold-shoulder treatment also pushed Prinze to the brink.

He said: "I did have those moments where the director was giving me psychotic notes, like 'Don't leave your mouth open. You look stupid when you do that' — that was the exact note, word for word, I’ll never forget it — and I'm like, I'm either gonna break down or I have to beat this guy's ass.

He said: "I did have those moments where the director was giving me psychotic notes, like 'Don't leave your mouth open. You look stupid when you do that' — that was the exact note, word for word, I'll never forget it — and I'm like, I'm either gonna break down or I have to beat this guy's ass. Like those were the only two options in my head."

Prinze went on to reveal his co-star Ryan Phillippe helped him get through the miserable experience, saying: "Ryan came up to me and was like: 'Screw that guy, man. How many times did you audition for this movie?' and I go, 'Five times,' he goes, 'Yeah, you earned it. You didn't get offered the role, you earned it' ... "

Prinze also shared that he almost gave up and walked away from the film, but was eventually talked into staying by one of the producers. However, he's now glad he decided to stick it out because if it weren't for the movie he would not have a career or met his future wife, Gellar, whom he married in 2002. 

"In hindsight, I'm not upset, because that movie launched my whole career," he said."I wouldn't have any of the things I have without that movie, I wouldn't have my wife, I wouldn't have all the other movies I've done, I wouldn't have this podcast. We wouldn't be doing this interview. I'm here because of that struggle and because of that pain and it was those things."

Prinze's account was a stark contrast from Gillespie's. In a 2017 interview with Digital Spy the director asserted that he was the one who fought for Prinze to be in the movie.

He said: "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. He went to the gym and worked out, changed his diet and his hair cut. I stuck to my guns and eventually they went: 'Yes'."

Listen to Prinze's podcast here:

— BANG SHOWBIZ

Photo: TPG News/Click Photos

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