Sarah Michelle Gellar Talks Her Surprise Return in I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER: “It Was So Surreal”
If you thought Helen Shivers’ story ended back in 1997, think again. Sarah Michelle Gellar made an unexpected return to the I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise in the new sequel that recently hit theaters. The actress recently opened up about how it all came together, and why she never saw this coming.
“I don’t think I had that one pegged,” Gellar said during an interview at the Las Culturistas Culture Awards in Los Angeles.
Directed and co-written by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, the film follows a group of former high school friends being hunted by a killer one year after a fatal car accident, which is exactly the same setup of the original movie but with a fresh cast that includes Madelyn Cline, Sarah Pidgeon, Chase Sui Wonders, Tyriq Withers, Austin Nichols, Billy Campbell, and Gabriette. The script was co-written by Sam Lansky.
I did not like the movie at all. But, I’m sure there are people that did like it and were excited to see Gellar return.
According to Gellar, this cameo wasn’t a last-minute idea.
“Jenn Robinson brought it up to me like three or four years ago – this has been a long process – I thought, ‘It’s such a good idea, but you don’t know. Do people still love the movie? Do people still watch the movie?’”
And even though Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt’s involvement in the film was public knowledge, Gellar kept her lips sealed. At the recent premiere, she walked the red carpet but didn’t give any interviews about the movie. Why? Because, despite Helen Shivers’ brutal death in the first film, Gellar does return in a nightmare sequence.
“Jenn kept saying from the beginning to me, ‘You have to do something,’ and I said, ‘I’m dead. I’m dead. This isn’t supernatural.’ She was like, ‘I’m gonna figure it out.’ And she did and it was brilliant.”
Fans will recognize Helen instantly in the dream sequence belonging to Cline’s character, Danica Richards. Gellar appears wearing her Croaker Queen crown and gown from the 1997 movie, and it was a moment that hit the actress hard.
“It was so surreal. When they put that on my head and they put the dress on and then I stood there – they had a picture of me from when I was the Croaker Queen [in 1997] next to it — I was like, ‘Oh, this is crazy.’”
The scene she’s in quickly takes a dark turn. “As the scene goes on, blood begins running down Helen’s face before she starts to decompose,” Robinson told Variety. “I wanted it to feel really unsettling. I wanted her to feel glowy and beautiful and effervescent and like the Helen Shivers that you remember, and then I wanted it to get darker and darker and darker as the scene progressed.”
Gellar admitted she may have confused some fans by denying her involvement, but technically, she didn’t lie.
“I’ve always said, ‘I’m dead,’” she laughed. “I did not lie. I do not lie. I am dead.”
Prinze Jr., who returns as Ray in the new film, said he enjoyed keeping the secret under wraps.
“I’m pretty good at keeping secrets, so for me it’s not hard,” he said at the premiere. “But I had friends who were like, ‘Come on, man, you could tell me. I was like ‘I ain’t telling you nothing, man. You gotta come see the movie just like everybody else.’”
The new I Know What You Did Last Summer dropped in theaters this past weekend, and if you haven’t seen it, don’t waste your time.
Source: Variety