Freddie Prinze Jr. Calls ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ Director an ‘A–hole’ Who Gave ‘Psychotic Notes’

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Freddie Prinze Jr. marked the launch of his new horror movie podcast “That Was Pretty Scary” by talking to TooFab about one of his own seminal horror films, the 1997 teen slasher classic “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” Prinze Jr., who co-hosts the podcast with Jon Lee Brody, said making the movie was a miserable experience because of director Jim Gillespie, who the actor said was “such an asshole” to him on set. Alleged tension between the two started because Gillespie wanted to cast Jeremy Sisto in the role of Ray Bronson but the studio and screenwriter Kevin Williamson wanted Prinze Jr. instead.

“I’ll give the man this, I think his name is Jim, he made no bones about it,” Prinze Jr. said of the director. “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 Jr. said Gillespie gave him “psychotic notes” on set such as “don’t leave your mouth open [because] you look stupid when you do that.”

“That was the exact note, word for word, I’ll never forget it,” Prinze Jr. said. “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. 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.'”

Prinze Jr. said he nearly quit the movie because of Gillespie, adding, “It was a struggle to finish work every day. I was in pain every single day on that movie. However, it prepared me for this business in a way. I’m forever grateful to Jim for being such an asshole because I’ve never met one like that since…no other director I’ve met felt crossing those lines would be OK. I’ve been prepared for every lesser A-hole in the business.”

“I’m sure he’s a hero in someone else’s story,” the actor continued. “I’m sure he helped someone else out and they loved him. But for me, he took a lot of frustration out on me. He was a first-time director, he didn’t have a lot of time, he didn’t have the budget he wanted, he didn’t have the actor he wanted, and he didn’t know how to deal with that frustration.”