Freddie Prinze Jr. thinks he should be getting more credit for Matthew Lillard’s career.
In a Men’s Health “Stress Test” video, which was published on Wednesday, July 23, Prinze Jr was grilled about which of his past film and TV shows caused him stress when he made the remark.
Prinze Jr, 49, has starred alongside Lillard, 55, in several high-profile projects including She’s All That and the live-action Scooby Doo movies.
When Prinze Jr. spotted Lillard among the footage he was reacting to, the actor joked, “Matthew doesn’t cause me stress, but I did give him a lot of work, and he should thank me.”
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Prinze Jr. also reflected on one of his most iconic roles, playing Zack Siler in 1999’s She’s All That.
“This was the first movie I was ever offered, so the stress levels were very, very low, but on every other movie I was in before this, I was convinced that I would be fired,” he reflected. “This was the first time that I was ever relaxed. This was actually the least stressful of all the movies that I did, and was the most enjoyable.”
He added, “And Rachael [Leigh Cook, who played his love interest Laney Boggs] and I have remained friends to this day. Paul Walker and I were friendly. We used to talk about jiu jitsu and fast cars. That’s all, that’s all we would talk about. But everybody on this film got along and there was no stress.”
While Prinze Jr. has a clear fondness for the teen rom-com, he was also well known in the 90s thanks to his portrayal of Ray Bronson in 1997’s I Know What You Did Last Summer.
He reprised his role as the fisherman in the 2025 reboot despite initially being in two minds about returning to the franchise.
“I was very hesitant to jump back in for a multitude of reasons. Some were creative, because I wasn’t the same guy so I didn’t know what kind of character they were gonna want,” Prinze Jr. told Us Weekly earlier this month. “I was worried they wouldn’t put much growth into it. So, I didn’t have any interest. And then my friend Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, who cowrote and directed the movie, said, ‘I know you’re gonna say no, but let me just pitch you my version of this movie.’ And she put so much thought and so much soul into Julie and Ray.”
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He said it was Robinson’s investment into making his character’s journey as interesting as possible — and giving Ray the right amount of depth more than two decades on — that solidified his decision to sign on the dotted line.
“There was so much thought into what [Julie and Ray] had gone through, trauma wise, and how they both dealt with it differently, that it gave them great motivations in the movie,” Prinze Jr. told Us. “It’s an interesting look at their relationship and where they’re at now and how they handle this new situation in their own unique ways. Once I kind of heard that, before the script was even written, I was like, ‘Wow, [Jen’s] idea is really, really good.’ She had some really cool s*** in there.”
