Freddie Prinze Jr. recalled his "terrible" experience on the set of "I Know What You Did Last Summer," saying that it nearly led him to quit acting.
The 1997 slasher flick helped launch his career, but in an interview with TooFab, Prinze, who played the role of Ray Bronson, said his relationship with director Jim Gillespie was strained.
"It's not that we weren't on the same page, I knew what the correct choices were for the Ray character. He wanted a different actor, a really good actor named Jeremy Sisto, who I know and I like and respect very, very much," said Prinze.
Prinze landed the role.
"I'll give the man this, I think his name is Jim, he made no bones about it. There was no passive aggressiveness — which I hate — he was very direct in the fact that, 'I don't want you in this movie,'" Prinze said. "So when that's your first job and you hear those words, it just wrecks you."
Prinze claimed Gillespie would leave him "psychotic notes," saying things such as "don't leave your mouth open. You look stupid when you do that." Prinze Jr. said it became "very difficult waking up in the morning" to go to work "with the right attitude."
Speaking on his podcast, "That Was Pretty Scary," Prinze said he "almost quit the movie" after a mishap that allegedly happened while filming a scene on a motorboat, which he refers to as a “near-death experience."
"I almost caught a flight and went home. I was done. I had enough," Prinze told TooFab. "They had broken a ton of union stuff that they shouldn't have, like union rules. All kinds of things. And I just felt like, Yo, if I'm not wanted here, screw it."
A producer was able to talk Prinze into staying and not leaving co-stars Ryan Phillippe and Sarah Michelle Gellar "on the wire."
"In hindsight, I'm not upset. In hindsight, the movie launched my whole career," Prinze said. "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."
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