Freddie Prinze Jr. Goes Off On “Asshole” Director Of I Know What You Did Last Summer

Freddie Prinze Jr made a name for himself being a 90s heartthrob starring in movies such as She’s All That with Rachel Leigh Cook, but it all started with I Know What You Did Last Summer. The teen slasher revival hit hard with Wes Craven’s Scream and a new wave of similar movies hit theaters. Prinze starred in not only the first I Know What You Did but the sequel as well the following year.

Making the first film wasn’t exactly an easy-going experience as Prinze talked about the process with the new horror movie podcast That Was Pretty Scary in which the director Jim Gillespie butted heads with Prinze regularly. Gillespie had wanted Jeremy Sisto cast, but the studio insisted on Prinze taking the role.

“I’ll give the man this, I think his name is Jim, he made no bones about [me being cast],” Prinze Jr. said during the episode (via Variety). “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.”

Prinze went on to say that Gillespie was very much an “asshole” and how he felt it was going to come to blows at times. “I’m either gonna break down or I have to beat this guy’s ass. Those were the only two options in my head. I remember Ryan [Phillippe] 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.'”

The actor eventually said he felt grateful to Gillespie for being the way he was because he has never met one like that since.”No other director I’ve met felt crossing those lines would be okay. I’ve been prepared for every lesser A-hole in the business.”

I Know What You Did Last Summer became a blockbuster during the Halloween season in 1997, earning over $125 million against a $17 million budget. Jim Gillespie did not return for the sequel.