Jennifer Love Hewitt Reveals Emotional Moment Shooting ‘IKWYDLS’ Sequel (Exclusive)

27 years after original classic teen slasher “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” the OG final girl Jennifer Love Hewitt is back as Julie James!

“Extra’s” Tommy DiDario sat down with Jennifer to talk about reprising her character for the sequel, directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson.

Hewitt shared, “It's honestly surreal, like, it's a pinch-me moment. It's a gratitude-filled moment… It's very weird. It's, like, a person that I never forgot, that I'm back to, but she's different and it's awesome.”

Jennifer opened up about her character, saying, “She's very different… I think you'll see shades of that girl because I want those to be in there, but… she's in her 40s. She's carried this a long time, I think she's figured out how to deal. She's a professor in sort of the mind and trauma and PTSD field, and so I think she's figured out a way to put herself in a position in her life that she can deal every day with what happened to her in her teens. She's a little edgier, she's funny, she's funny in this movie, which I really appreciate and… I think you just see that she's lived in this person for a while.”

As for stepping back into Julie’s shoes again, Jennifer admitted, “First of all, I don't know that I’ve ever been as anxious or panicky a night before working in 36 years as I was before stepping back on this set because I was like, ‘What is happening? I'm doing this, this is it.’ And there was a lot of lead-up of, like, when it was going to happen and how it was going to happen, if it was going to happen, and then we just got there and we did it and it was awesome.”  

She elaborated, “The coolest moment was I had to do like a professor scene and stand up in front of everybody and Jen, the director, was telling them that it was Julie's first moment in the movie and all these like young extras on the set started clapping and they knew who she was.”

"That meant a lot to be," Hewitt shared, admitting she cried "a little bit." She emphasized, "It was also cool that they even knew the movie, so that was fun."

Jennifer is reuniting with Freddie Prinze Jr. in the movie! She called it a “very surreal” moment to see her co-star on set, saying, “When Freddie and I saw each other the other day, it was kind of like… This is like what a high school reunion feels like, where you look and you're like, ‘Oh, my God, that dude in high school.’”

Jennifer recalled being 18 when she made the first movie, saying, “I just remember feeling terrified. First of all, I was not a horror movie fan, so I was like, ‘Why am I in a scary movie? This is terrifying,’ and I was literally doing night shots and running from a fisherman, and then I’d go home and have dreams about a fisherman chasing me. I remember feeling a lot of responsibility for making, you know, the movie and being Julie and, like, taking that on, and then I just remember when it came out and everybody loved it, everything just changed… Life was different after that and I was really lucky to be a part of something special, and now to have people still care about it and want her back — it's really it touches my heart.”

Hewitt also shared something she has never revealed before about making the first two movies!

She said, “I think people didn't know or don't know that I actually got hurt on both movies with the actual hook. I think people think, ‘Oh, it's a hook movie and so it's probably like plastic or whatever.’ It was a real hook that they used for a lighting device so it would, like, glimmer and catch things and all that stuff, and we would have, like, a little tennis ball on it and then that would come off and we would do the scenes.”  

She went on, “So, in the first movie, there's a moment where Julie's, like, under the boat and the fisherman comes and so they moved my mark for this take and then they moved his mark but they didn't tell either one of us that they did that and he hooks through… and he actually hooked my eye and scratched my eye and I went blind… I went blind for a second — it's fine.”

Jennifer noted, “In the second movie, he pulls me under the bed and I got hooked in the ankle with it and it actually, like, went through the ankle in one of the takes.”

Again, Jennifer was fine — and now she’s back for more!

She commented, “The anxiety is different this time, being totally honest. I think, on one hand, I feel this like real sense of gratitude and awesomeness to have not been forgotten and to matter still in the franchise and for people to allow me to come back. On the other hand, being a 46-year-old woman who's aging in Hollywood and stepping back into a role that you did when you were 18, it comes with anxiety. I think, you know, the internet's different now, people say what they say. You wonder if people are going to come for you… but I have confidence in the fact that even if I don't have confidence in myself in a moment, I have confidence that the moms who are buying those tickets for their daughters to see the movie are there because they remember who Julie was.”

When she was praised for her recent makeup-free selfies, Hewitt said, “I've grown up with everybody and they've grown up with me and that's sort of the comforting thing about, you know, being in the business this long is that you sort of you're in the same place as the people who have been watching you, and I feel like I am very much in a phase of learning how to do this new thing of social media and when do you filter yourself, when do you not filter yourself, when do you just sort of let your age be and wear that with pride.”

During the set visit, Jennifer also gave "Extra" a little tour inside Julie’s living room. Watch!