‘Total anxiety’: OG ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ actor was terrified to return 28 years later

Jennifer Love Hewitt, the star of I Know What You Did Last Summer, has opened up about the anxiety-inducing experience that comes with remaking the iconic slasher film. 

Hewitt, who portrayed Julie James in the 1997 original, is set to reprise her famous role in the upcoming sequel, slated for release in July. Ahead of the premiere, Hewitt said in a recent interview that while returning to such a beloved film is a thrill ride, it still comes with its fair share of apprehension. The actress told People that revisiting one of her earliest roles was “nerve-racking,” given the decades since the film’s release and the expectations of fans.

First look at Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr in the new ‘I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER’ movie.

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“I’ll be super honest, I had total anxiety for 48 hours before [filming] because I was like, ‘Can I do this? Am I going to pull this off?’ It’s a lot of pressure,” she said. Thankfully, the burden of rebooting such a timeless classic was shared among the remaining castmates. The 2025 sequel to I Know What You Did Last Summer will welcome back familiar faces in the form of Freddie Prinze Jr., who played Hewitt’s love interest, as well as Ryan Phillippe. The trio of returning castmates will shepard in a new generation of scream queens and kings, with a whole batch of newcomers joining the sequel, too.

That includes Chase Sui Wonders, who is currently making waves in The Studio, as well as Outer Banks star Madelyn Cline, Sarah Pidgeon and Jonah Hauer-King. For Hewitt, the influx of young stars felt like passing the baton. “It’s for them to make it their own and for me to stand by like a proud mom and say, ‘It’s yours now, take it and run and enjoy.'” As for what the cast will get up to, well… the plot might sound a little familiar. The sequel follows a group of five friends who inadvertently cause a deadly car accident, and cover it up by making a pact to take the secret to the grave. 

First look at Jonah Hauer-King, Sarah Pidgeon, Chase Sui Wonders, Madelyn Cline & Tyriq Withers in ‘I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER’

In theaters July 18.

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What happens next, you ask? Well, a year later, someone seeks revenge while making it clear they know what they did last summer. A fresh twist is brought to the sequel’s plot when the newbies discover what happened during the Southport Massacre of 1997, and consult two survivors for help. All of this must come as welcome news for slasher fans, since the I Know What You Did Last Summer sequel has been in the works for what feels like millennia. Back in 2023, multiple stars from the original seemed to backtrack on plans for a remake, and the following year, OG castmate Sarah Michelle Gellar declined to appear in the sequel entirely.

To be fair, her character did die in the original film, so I guess slasher fans will have to deal with just one of their favorites being absent. Better yet, there were rumblings of a feud between Hewitt and Gellar (who, for the record, is the real-life wife of Prinze Jr.), so perhaps it’s best that they don’t appear in the sequel with all those knives flying around. In any case, we’ll have to wait and see whether Hewitt’s understandable anxiety around returning to the franchise almost three decades after the original plays out on screen. Given the contents of the film, there’ll be enough anxiety in the audiences as it is.