Freddie Prinze Jr. Explained Why "I Know What You Did Last Summer" Was The "Hardest Job" That He's Ever Done

I Know What You Did Last Summer may have launched Freddie Prinze Jr.’s career but the whole thing was apparently a “miserable” experience.

From the very beginning, Freddie says he felt that director Jim Gillespie didn’t want him cast in the movie.

“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,'” Freddie shared in an interview with TooFab.

He explained that Jim had wanted an actor named Jeremy Sisto to take the lead and knowing that he wasn’t wanted on set was really difficult.

“When that’s your first job and you hear those words, it just wrecks you, man. It just wrecks you,” Freddie admitted.

On top of that, Freddie says the director often excluded him from conversations with the rest of the cast and when he did offer him critique, they were “psychotic notes.”

“It was very difficult waking up in the morning — or in the afternoon, because we shot a lot of nights — and go to work with the right attitude,” he shared.

“When 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,” Freddie said. “I’m like, I’m either gonna break down or I have to beat this guy’s ass.”

It got to a point where Freddie did nearly break down and actually “almost quit the movie” after a “near death experience” while filming a scene on a motorboat.

“I almost caught a flight and went home. I was done. I had enough,” Freddie said. “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.”

Freddie says he “packed [his] bags that night” with plans to “quit the business” and return to culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu.

But thanks to his costars Ryan Phillippe and Sarah Michelle Gellar, as well as producer Erik Feig, Freddie was able to be convinced to stay.

“I wanted to fight that guy two or three different times. Once I felt was a legitimate reason, and the other two I was just pissed off, which, that’s not right,” Freddie admitted. “I’m glad everybody talked me down.”

Looking back, Freddie says he’s not upset about it at all because the “movie launched [his] whole career” and he wouldn’t have anything without it — including his wife Sarah.

“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,” Freddie shared.

He continued, “It sounds weird to say this — I’m forever grateful for Jim for being such an asshole because I’ve never met one like that since. I’ve been prepared for every lesser A-hole in the business.”

“It was the hardest job that I’ve ever done,” Freddie concluded. “And I’m just glad I got it out of the way that early.”