Freddie Prinze Jr. | Stress Test | Men's Health - video Dailymotion

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Freddie Prinze Jr. | Stress Test | Men's Health

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00:00Friends! So this is a fun story. The sitcom Friends from the 90s, I got to play

00:04a character called the Manny, and they said, do you know how to play the recorder?

00:07I was like, no, who knows how to play the recorder outside of the third grade?

00:10And they're like, well, you need to learn. So I actually learned how to play that song.

00:13And it's really me playing. They didn't use a soundtrack.

00:17Hi, I'm Freddie Prinze Jr. from the new I Know What You Did last summer,

00:20and sometimes things can get kind of crazy on set, and often even stressful.

00:24I'm here to share some stories, and this is my stress test.

00:30She's All That is first on the list. This was the first movie I was ever offered.

00:42So the stress levels were very, very low, but on every other movie I was in before this,

00:46I was convinced that I would be fired. This was the first time that I was ever relaxed.

00:50So this is actually the least stressful of all the movies that I did, and was the most enjoyable,

00:55and Rachel and I have remained friends to this day. Paul Walker and I were friendly.

00:58We used to talk about jujitsu and fast cars. That's all we would talk about.

01:02But everybody on this film got along, and there was no stress.

01:05So I failed the stress test so far. Let's see what the next question is.

01:08Family matters. This was my very first job, you guys.

01:12I got to play a gangbanger. Miscast terribly.

01:15He carried a gun, and they were doing like a gun drive. Not a gun drive.

01:18They weren't trying to get guns. They were trying to get guns off the street.

01:20My character comes up, and he says something to the effect of,

01:24so what's the deal? I give you a gun, and you give me money?

01:27And the girl, the daughter of the lead of the show, she's like, no.

01:29And I go, do I get concert tickets? She goes, no.

01:32I go, so what do I get? She goes, you get your life.

01:35And my character goes, man, forget that.

01:37That was my first job, so don't talk trash.

01:39I know what you did last summer. Okay, so this is the one.

01:42I was not the director's first choice.

01:44They wanted Jeremy Sisto. That's who they wanted.

01:46Who I love, awesome actor, but I was convinced every day

01:49for the first three to four weeks of this movie that they were going to fire me.

01:52And this was my first big movie, and it wasn't until like week four, week five,

01:56that I was like, well, if they fire me now, they got to reshoot a whole month's worth.

02:01So I think I'm good? And from that moment forward,

02:04I started approaching the scenes with a little bit more confidence.

02:07You got to remember, I was the least experienced actor out of all of them.

02:10They were all child actors.

02:11I had started 10 minutes ago and really had to lean on my cast for support.

02:15But it was a good experience. As stressful and challenging as it was,

02:18those are the kind of moments that help kind of shape us and make us a little bit tougher.

02:22So that's I know what you did last summer. What do we got next? What do we have next?

02:25Scooby-Doo. So the only stress on Scooby-Doo is getting it right.

02:29That was the most terrifying part, actually, was what if everyone hates it?

02:32So that was where the stress came. It was all pressure to succeed.

02:36Fortunately, Matt nailed the voice. Fortunately, Linda nailed the voice.

02:39There's no real Fred Jones voice. So I just had to do a version of myself.

02:42But getting to see them kind of solidify those characters made it much easier for us to as well.

02:47So pressure. That was the stress on Scooby.

02:49Matthew Lillard. Matthew doesn't cause me stress, but I did give him a lot of work.

02:54And he should thank me. Moving on.

02:58Friends. So this is a fun story. The sitcom Friends from the 90s that a lot of people remember.

03:03If you're super young, then you don't. But it was a cool show.

03:05And I got to play a character called the Manny. But it almost wasn't me.

03:09It was supposed to be Tom Hanks. And he got stuck in Europe.

03:12His flight got canceled. He wasn't able to make it.

03:14And they called me and said, hey, would you want to be on Friends?

03:17I said, yeah, that would be great. And they said, cool. It starts tomorrow.

03:20And so I literally had to go in. I had just gotten the script.

03:23And they said, do you know how to play the recorder? And I laughed.

03:26I was like, no. Who knows how to play the recorder outside of the third grade?

03:29And they're like, well, you need to learn. So I actually learned how to play that song.

03:32And it's really me playing. They didn't use the soundtrack.

03:35So the stress was not screwing up the song.

03:37But I remember David Schwimmer came in and he was like, you're going to love this.

03:41It's like doing a two-act play. The crowd gives you so much energy. Use it. Let them be a part of the show.

03:47And it really helped relax me and make the whole experience just awesome and great.

03:51So a big thank you to Mr. Schwimmer.

03:54Summer Catch. This was a dream come true.

03:57I got to play baseball. I got to pitch, which was awesome.

04:00The stress for this was looking credible while pitching.

04:03The training was super hard. The whole cast trained for, I think, two months before the movie even started.

04:08And we had pro scouts and pro players teaching us and getting my velocity up.

04:12I was throwing around 82, 83 miles an hour back then.

04:15When we were doing press for the movie, I had to throw out a first pitch.

04:17And it was not that fast because I was not as in good a shape.

04:20It was more like 75 right around there. But it was still a strike.

04:2324. Not a ton of stress on 24. I did the last season of it or second to last season, something like that.

04:30They had this show running super, super smooth. Everybody was off book. They all knew their stuff.

04:35Not a lot of stress. Everybody kind of knew what they were doing.

04:37That was the most professional crew that I ever had the pleasure to work with back then.

04:41The new I know what you did last summer. Probably the most stressful.

04:45Revisiting legacy characters. There's pressure there.

04:48We were using an intellectual property on that. So you don't want to mess it up.

04:51In this case, it was us. So we don't want to mess us up.

04:54I was very hesitant when they first started talking about this movie and it was an easy pass for me.

04:59And Jennifer Caitlin Robinson, the director who I'm friends with, said,

05:02Hey, I know you don't want to do the movie. Let me pitch you where I think these characters are at.

05:05And if you like that, I'll pitch you my vision for the film.

05:08And she pitched me this story about trauma and how the same trauma can hit two people completely differently.

05:12And I just thought that was really attractive to play as an actor.

05:15And I said yes before I even read a script, because I just knew it was all going to work out. And it did.

05:19WWE. Some of you may not know this. After 24, I stopped acting for a while. I had babies.

05:25I was living in New York at the time in the same building as Shane McMahon, who was Vince McMahon's son.

05:30Or still is, obviously. He's not. He hasn't passed on.

05:32And I got offered a job to write and to acting coach professional wrestlers.

05:37Sounds like a TV show for Comedy Central in the 90s, but it wasn't.

05:40It was my life. And so I would literally give notes to these, like, six-foot-ten dudes.

05:44And they'd go out to the middle of the ring to all these people and they'd come backstage and be like,

05:47Did I do a good job? And you're, like, looking up at them like, Yeah, man. Way to go.

05:51It was a stressful job for everyone that worked there, I think, except me.

05:55It was kind of a childhood fantasy. My grandma used to take me to, like, Lucha Libre matches in Puerto Rico.

05:59When I was a kid and they put a cage around the ring.

06:03And I was, I remember asking, Is this a steel cage match?

06:06And she said, No, that cage is there to protect the wrestler in case the wrong guy wins.

06:10And she was right because they would literally throw rocks and pennies and all kinds of stuff with the bad guys.

06:15And I fell in love with wrestling that day and I got a weird opportunity to work for that company.

06:19I don't remember the stress, but I know everyone around me was always stressed.

06:23I really just had fun on that one. So another stress test fail.

06:26All right, you guys, those are my stories. Remember, keep calm. No stress. Enjoy the stories.

06:32Great.

Freddie Prinze Jr. | Stress Test | Men's Health

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