As she gears up for the revival of “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” Jennifer Love Hewitt is opening up about the inappropriate comments she received after first starring in the horror franchise 28 years ago.
Hewitt rose to fame as a child actor in the early 1990s, with roles on the Disney Channel series “Kids Incorporated” and the Fox teen drama “Party of Five.” She nabbed her breakout role, however, in 1997 when she starred as Julie James in the original “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” and found herself unprepared for being viewed as a sex symbol.
“When ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ came out, everybody said, ‘Oh, I know what your breasts did last summer,’” Hewitt explained on an episode of “Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown” podcast this week. “There were grown men talking to me at 16 about my breasts, just openly on a talk show, and people were laughing about it.”
“I didn’t know what being sexy meant, and I was on the cover of Maxim magazines,” she added. “People would openly walk up and be like, ‘I took your magazine on a trip with me last week,’ And I’d have to be like, ‘Oh, ha ha.’ I didn’t really know what that meant ― it’s kinda gross.”
The film’s marketing certainly didn’t help. “I was so mad that I had done my first movie and worked so hard, and the only thing that you see is a movie poster with boobs on it,” she said.
Adapted from Lois Duncan’s 1973 novel, “I Know What You Did Last Summer” follows a group of four teenage friends who are targeted by a serial killer after covering up a hit-and-run car accident in which a pedestrian was assumed dead.
In addition to Hewitt, the film helped land actors Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe and Freddie Prinze Jr. on the Hollywood map. A 1998 sequel, “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer,” saw Hewitt and Prinze reprising their roles alongside new cast members Brandy and Mekhi Phifer.
Elsewhere in her “Breakdown” chat, Hewitt credited her mother, Patricia, with “keeping reality very apparent” as her public profile grew.
“I would go to premiere parties, but I would be there for like 45 minutes. My mom was always at the table next to me,” she said. “I’d do my interviews, and I’d go home … I was in Hollywood, but I wasn’t in Hollywood.”
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Hewitt’s remarks come about a month after she confirmed plans to appear in a forthcoming revival of “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” slated for release later this year.
“It’s never too late to go back. Julie James is returning,” she wrote on Instagram in December. “I know what you will be doing next summer!”
Listen to Jennifer Love Hewitt’s interview on “Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown” here. Her comments on “I Know What You Did Last Summer” begin around the 30:29 mark.