'I Know What You Did Last Summer': Why Jennifer Love Hewitt was a 'nervous wreck'
When Jennifer Love Hewitt learned a new "I Know What You Did Last Summer" movie was in the works, her first reaction was "immediate fear and panic that I might have to be in it."
Hewitt starred in the original 1997 slasher movie, in which a group of friends run over a pedestrian and are hunted by a killer who knows what they did. But she hasn't played Julie James since the 1998 sequel, when she was 19. So before filming began on the latest "I Know What You Did Last Summer" (in theaters July 18), Hewitt was a "nervous wreck."
"Coming back at 46 is really daunting in Hollywood, for lots of reasons," she says. "You don't want people to be like, 'Oh, she looks different,' or 'She's aged.' You don't want any of that."
But Hewitt also felt "deeply grateful that I was not forgotten" when she returned to the role for the first time in almost 30 years. The actress's nerves were eased, and she "fully started crying" when the extras in her first scene welcomed her back with a round of applause.
"It meant so much to me," she says. "I felt like, 'Oh, I'm supported, and I should be here.' "
History repeats itself in "I Know What You Did Last Summer" when a new group of friends is targeted by a killer as revenge for their involvement in a fatal car accident a year earlier. After the friends − played by Chase Sui Wonders, Madelyn Cline, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers and Sarah Pidgeon − realize something similar occurred in 1997, they turn to the survivors of the original film: Julie (Hewitt) and Ray Bronson, played by a returning Freddie Prinze Jr.
Prinze was enticed back by director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson's ("Do Revenge") pitch for a film exploring how the same events can affect people in different ways. In the years since Julie and Ray's friends were murdered, she has become a professor who teaches about post-traumatic stress disorder and the importance of dealing with trauma. Ray, in contrast, bottles up his emotions.
"It gave me this idea of trauma making or breaking human beings," Prinze says. "The people I know that have been reformed from it, and the people I know who are crushed by it, and my own trauma, my own experiences that you can apply to bring some vulnerability to the role."
Ray and Julie were a couple the last time fans saw them but have since divorced, a decision that felt right for both actors. "There was no way that they could be in a healthy relationship after what they went through," says Prinze, who imagines that Ray's neglect of counseling contributed to the marriage breaking down.
For Prinze, working with Hewitt again was like a high school reunion. "You're waiting to see what's different, what's the same, how you've grown," he says, noting he was ready to prove he's a better actor now than he was in the '90s. But a fast-paced shooting schedule left the pair with little time to catch up before being thrown into their first scene together. "There was a 'Good morning,' and 'I heard you have kids,' " he jokes.
Hewitt says the 27 years between movies allowed her to deliver a richer performance.
"Had we done this earlier, I would not have had real grief in my life," she says. "I would not have had trauma to overcome at that point, and I've had those things now."
While the new film heavily echoes its predecessor, there are tweaks to the central scenario. The original friends hit a pedestrian with their car and dumped his body in the water. But the new characters' role in the accident is less direct, as they don't run over anyone. Instead, one of them is messing around on the road, causing a driver to swerve, crash and fall off a cliff into the water. The group then hides the fact that they were there.
The director saw this change as a way to add complexity. "There's more nuance in morality in 2025," she says. The characters are also in their 20s this time, not teens. "There's more accountability when you're older," Robinson says. "The weight of their decisions matter more. You can't blame it on youth."
Cline points out that the blueprint for her character, Danica, was Sarah Michelle Gellar's fan favorite, Helen Shivers from the first movie. Danica is even the winner of the same beauty pageant as Helen. But if the new film has its own Julie James, it's Wonders' Ava Brucks, who goes to visit the actual Julie for advice. The "Bodies Bodies Bodies" actress aimed to capture the "sweet heart" of Hewitt's original character.
Hewitt, who now shares the "I Know" franchise with her children, drew on her relationship with her daughter to inform Julie's protective feelings toward Ava ‒ a dynamic that extended off-camera. She remembers having a conversation with Wonders, 29, about passing the torch, which echoed a discussion Hewitt had with Sigourney Weaver on the 2001 rom-com "Heartbreakers."
"I was able to say, 'Passing this baton to you guys feels great, and I hope that you take this baton and you pass it on 27 years from now,' " she says.
Wonders was thankful Hewitt was "so generous" and hopes she can one day return the favor to a younger actress. "My crowning moment was Jennifer Love Hewitt grabbing my hand after the very last scene we shot together, and she said, 'You have the Julie James heart,' " she says. "I started crying. It was so emotional and so sweet."