{"id":23880,"date":"2025-07-20T13:51:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T13:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/23880\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T13:51:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T13:51:07","slug":"freddie-prinze-jr-on-i-know-what-you-did-last-summer-wwe-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/23880\/","title":{"rendered":"Freddie Prinze Jr. On ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer,’ WWE Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFreddie Prinze Jr.<\/a> has a favorite piece of lore from his childhood.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0In the late \u201970s, only a few years after the untimely death of his famous father, Prinze went with his mother to Universal Studios. The back-lot tour was delightfully chock-a-block with actors playing the company\u2019s iconic monsters.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWolf Man, Dracula, the Creature from the Black Lagoon,\u201d Prinze remembers. While other kids hid behind their parents, screaming, Prinze was starstruck. \u201cI would ask for hugs,\u201d he says. \u201cI hugged Frankenstein.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn time, Prinze would spin his boyhood love of monsters into a Hollywood career as a \u201990s heartthrob. His Noxzema smile and chiseled jawline made him the object of desire for millions of rising millennials in the Ugly Duckling rom-com \u201cShe\u2019s All That.\u201d He\u2019s also synonymous with beloved horror franchise \u201cI Know What You Did Last Summer<\/a>,\u201d a movie that cemented him \u2014 and co-stars Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ryan Phillippe and Sarah Michelle Gellar (to whom he\u2019s now married) \u2014 as pop culture icons.<\/p>\n

\n\tPrinze Jr. and Gellar ruled as a power couple, but his proceeding decades in show business were full of pivots. While Gellar\u2019s fame from \u201cBuffy the Vampire Slayer\u201d kept her busy in TV (and allowed her to amass 4.8 million Instagram followers), he dabbled in recurring roles on action shows, voice-over work in the animated \u201cStar Wars\u201d world and, most unexpectedly, two stints in the writers\u2019 room at WWE.<\/p>\n

\n\tPrinze probably won\u2019t get any hugs from the villain in this month\u2019s movie reboot of \u201cI Know What You Did Last Summer,\u201d whose faceless fisherman fond of gutting victims with a hook returns to terrorize a new generation of coeds. Prinze and Hewitt reprise their roles as Ray and Julie, young lovers who survived killing sprees in films from 1997 and 1998.<\/p>\n

\n\tVariety caught up with Prinze via Zoom, conferencing from his Los Angeles home. Clad in a burnout T-shirt, the actor proved every bit the relaxed Southern California dad he\u2019s become. Peppering the conversation with \u201cBros\u201d and \u201cmans,\u201d he shares his formula for private life as a public figure, the one Hollywood dream that\u2019s evaded him and the cost of authenticity in a ruthless business.<\/p>\n

\t\tIn the previous films, Ray was a prototypical townie but still had a good head on his shoulders. Where do we find him and Jennifer Love Hewitt\u2019s character, Julie, in 2025?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tTime hasn\u2019t been good to Ray. That was attractive to me \u2014 I\u2019ve never gotten the opportunity to play that before. Ray is a guy who never spent a dollar he didn\u2019t work really hard to make. He\u2019s in denial. He\u2019s not the tough guy he used to be. Julie has used her trauma to help build her career and move her life forward.<\/p>\n

\t\tHave you kept in touch with Jennifer over the years?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tWe run in different circles. I hadn\u2019t seen her since we wrapped the second movie in \u201998, but we care a lot about these characters, and it was all still there. After we finished that first scene, we had a chance to say, \u201cOh, you have kids. And you have kids.\u201d Honestly, I think the first scene we share in this movie, where Ray and Julie con- front the reality of their relationship, is the best work we\u2019ve done of all three. I\u2019m really proud of it. Our director, Jenn Robinson, three-dimensionalized these characters.<\/p>\n

\t\tYour career is diverse: You had this intense fame as a young man. You got married and had kids and became a private citizen while doing action movies, TV procedurals, an- imation voice-over. You were in a writers\u2019 room. What\u2019s left?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019d love to direct a horror film. They were my favorite movies since I was a little kid. I always got off on scaring my mom or friends. At lights-out time, when I was 3, I used to go down the hall before bed into every dark room and growl. My mom asked what I was doing, and I said, \u201cI\u2019m try- ing to scare them before they scare me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tYou\u2019ve been outspoken about difficulties you\u2019ve had with some bad behavior in show business. You discussed your wife\u2019s mis- treatment on \u201cBuffy the Vampire Slayer\u201d years before showrunner Joss Whedon was accused of harassment and toxicity. You\u2019ve said you quit working for WWE because it conflicted with your values as a father. Has that cost you anything?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI don\u2019t know how to answer that accurately. This will sound stupid, but when I was 14 years old, I saw an interview with Elvis. He was asked a political question and said, \u201cLook, man, I\u2019m just an entertainer.\u201d I try to live as private a life as a public figure can live. I offer dignity to everyone, and the opportunity to earn respect. That includes your celebrities. I find people want affirmation more than information, and that\u2019s fine. I don\u2019t offer up advice.<\/p>\n

\t\tDoes it occur to you that some of your con- temporaries are still going to L.A. clubs and posting thirst traps while you\u2019re being a dad?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are some young people that are old souls, and there\u2019s some old people that have young hearts. I\u2019m almost 50. I didn\u2019t know that my contemporaries are still partying until you said it. I don\u2019t keep up. I\u2019m not on social except for this podcast I do. I just love my kids. My daughter [Charlotte] is away for the summer, and I hate it. I like hanging out with my son [Rocky] \u2014 he\u2019s really funny. I love my wife, man. I married her for a reason.<\/p>\n

\t\tYou\u2019ve been married for 23 years \u2014 all while in this business. How do you pull it off?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tMarriage is hard no matter what business you\u2019re in. What works for us might not work for everyone else. We work at it. I\u2019m not perfect. She\u2019s not perfect. We piss each other off, but we respect one another. We were friends first. Maybe that\u2019s the secret? It wasn\u2019t just \u201cOh, she\u2019s hot, he\u2019s hot \u2014 let\u2019s hook up.\u201d But I know people who\u2019ve done it the other way, and their relationships are just as strong as mine.<\/p>\n

\t\tI\u2019m sure the upcoming \u201cBuffy\u201d reboot with Chlo\u00e9 Zhao is a big thing in your house right now. Is Sarah being treated the right way?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s in good hands; if a studio starts micro- managing and things like that, then who knows. So far, so good. I read the pilot and I thought it was awesome. I\u2019m not the demographic, [but] I can easily recognize the impact it\u2019s had globally. We\u2019ve been to Bali and seen a taxi driver with a \u201cBuffy the Vampire Slayer\u201d T-shirt on.<\/p>\n

\t\tIs there a world where you appear on the new version?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tShe hasn\u2019t asked, and I haven\u2019t offered. If they needed me, of course. But I think they got it under control.<\/p>\n

\t\tThis could be your chance to play a monster.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tExactly. To finally be someone under the mask.<\/p>\n

\t\tThere have been some attempts to get a biopic about your father<\/a> off the ground. Is that still in the works?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI was approached by someone I respect who saw a clip of my dad while they were doomscrolling online. It was a cool take, centered around his stand-up comedy. It seemed effortless. We got him in touch with some of my dad\u2019s old comrades, these legends like Pam Grier and Paul Williams. People who really knew him. My dad and Pam Grier were lovers \u2014 that\u2019s not a secret \u2014 so I was grateful for her time. The script didn\u2019t translate to that original pitch, so it disappeared into the ether. If the right idea came along, we\u2019d say yes as a family.<\/p>\n

\t\tHas anyone suggested you play your dad?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tNo, thankfully, although I\u2019d expect that note from some of the executives that exist these days. Once all the studios were sold and became publicly traded companies, the leadership changed. The philosophies are night and day from when I was coming up.<\/p>\n

\t\tNetflix will air a documentary about the writers\u2019 room inside WWE. Will you watch?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI really wish they wouldn\u2019t do this. I think it\u2019s just too inside. I was taught by old-school people, and the goal of the writers\u2019 room is to help get the talent to succeed. That\u2019s the job. If a monologue or the scene sucks, that\u2019s on the writer. If it\u2019s great, then the talent got that over. You take the blame but not the credit. If the cookie is delicious, let me enjoy it. I don\u2019t want to see how it\u2019s made. I\u2019m not wishing for failure, but it\u2019s not as much fun when you know everything about the magic tricks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Freddie Prinze Jr. has a favorite piece of lore from his childhood. \u00a0In the late \u201970s, only a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[88,12503,13729,13731],"class_list":["post-23880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-freddie-prinze-jr","tag-i-know-what-you-did-last-summer","tag-sony-pictures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}