Freddie Prinze, Jr.
Prinze in April 2007
Born	Freddie James Prinze, Jr. March 8, 1976 (1976-03-08) (age 33) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1995 – present
Spouse(s)	Sarah Michelle Gellar (2002-present)

Freddie James Prinze, Jr. (born March 8, 1976) is an American actor. He became known during the late 1990s and early 2000s, after starring in several Hollywood films aimed at teenage audiences, I Know What You Did Last Summer and its sequel, as well as She's All That, and Scooby-Doo. Prinze has also made appearances in television sitcoms, including Friends. He is a former member of World Wrestling Entertainment's creative team as the Smackdown brand writer.

Early life

Prinze was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Kathy Elaine Cochran (née Barber), a real estate agent, and Freddie Prinze, an actor and comedian¹of Puerto Rican² and Hungarian Jewish³⁴ descent, who killed himself in 1977 after Kathy had left him and had filed a restraining order against him. In a 1999 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Prinze stated that his mother is of English, Irish and Native American ancestry (adding that "My grandma and grandpa, who raised me for the first few years, were straight-up English and Irish");⁵ in a 2007 interview, however, Prinze, Jr. described his mother as coming from an Italian American family.⁶ Prinze, Jr. was raised Roman Catholic⁷ and embraces his Puerto Rican heritage.⁸⁶ He grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico and spent summers in Puerto Rico,⁶ where he learned about Spanish and Puerto Rican culture from his paternal grandmother.⁹ He speaks fluent Spanish and Italian.⁶ He showed an interest in acting from an early age and attended La Cueva High School in Albuquerque. After graduating in 1994, Prinze moved to Los Angeles to audition for television roles .¹⁰

Career

Prinze and wife Sarah Michelle Gellar at the Tribeca Film Festival

Prinze was cast in a guest role on the ABC TV series Family Matters in 1995. He then appeared on a few special programs and made-for-TV movies, before making his motion picture debut in To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday in 1996. In subsequent years, Prinze experienced success with appearances in youth-oriented movies. I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and its sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998), made him well-known among teenage audiences and his first leading role, the romantic comedy She's All That (1999), was very successful at the box office, grossing $63 million¹¹ in the United States.

Subsequently, he had leading roles in Wing Commander (1999), Down to You (2000), Boys and Girls (2000), Head Over Heels (2001) and Summer Catch (2001), most of which were generally disliked by critics¹² and had moderate box office success.¹³ In 2000, he was named one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World".

In 2002, he played Fred Jones in the live film version of the popular cartoon, Scooby-Doo, and repeated the role in the 2004 sequel, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. He starred in both Scooby-Doo movies alongside his wife, Sarah Michelle Gellar. He guest starred on the popular NBC show, Friends, as a sensitive male nanny named Sandy. He also appeared as Donny Crane, a character believed to be Denny Crane's son in the ABC legal drama-comedy Boston Legal. Prinze starred in his own television sitcom, titled Freddie. The sitcom is said to depict some actual events from his life. The show lasted one season (fall 2005 - spring 2006) before being canceled in May 2006. He guest starred on the George Lopez Show for a crossover with Freddie. In 2004, the actor accepted a special award from TV Land on behalf of his late father. He thanked his father's former co-star, Della Reese, for her continued advice and support. In 2006, he lent his voice to the character of Pi in the computer-animated film Shark Bait. Also, in 2007, he lent his voice to the character of Rick in Happily N'Ever After along with his wife Sarah Michelle Gellar, Wallace Shawn, Andy Dick and Sigourney Weaver.

In March 2009, it was announced the Prinze had signed on to star as Bradley, aka Ultimatum in the ABC show No Heroics, a US remake of the British show of the same name.¹⁴¹⁵¹⁶ The show was not picked up, but shortly after Prinze was cast as a series regular for the eighth season of the megahit television show 24, where he will be playing a new CTU operative.

World Wrestling Entertainment (2008-2009)

Prinze is also a known fan of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and was shown on television in attendance at the March 2008 WrestleMania XXIV pay-per-view and its preceding Hall of Fame ceremony. He also made a cameo on an episode of The Dirt Sheet, an online program hosted by wrestlers John Morrison and The Miz, ^view and created an official profile on WWE's "Universe" blog community where he regularly writes his thoughts on the current going-ons in the world of the WWE. His relationship with the company was furthered when he was hired as a member of the creative staff to contributing to weekly television and pay-per-view program¹⁷ for the SmackDown brand.¹⁸ It was later reported on February 22, 2009 that Freddie Prinze Jr and WWE parted ways.¹⁹

Personal life

In the mid-1990s, Prinze dated actress Kimberly McCullough for more than three years.²⁰ He married actress Sarah Michelle Gellar on September 1, 2002, in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, in southwest of México. The couple met several years before, while filming I Know What You Did Last Summer,²¹ started dating in 2000 and were engaged in April 2001. Gellar played a small role in She's All That. In 2007, for their fifth year of marriage, Gellar legally changed her name to Sarah Michelle Prinze.²²²³

He also enjoys tap dancing and collecting comic books. He is an avid soccer fan and supports Arsenal F.C., and is a fan of East Asian cinema.

It was reported by People Magazine on April 9, 2009 that Prinze and Gellar are expecting their first child.

Filmography

See also

Puerto Rico portal

• List of famous Puerto Ricans

References

External links

• Official WWE Fan Nation Profile
• Jam! Movies interview (October 5, 2005)
• Hispanic Magazine interview (September, 2005)
• Freddie Prinze, Jr. at the Internet Movie Database
• THR

v • d • e I Know What You Did Last Summer trilogy Films I Know What You Did Last Summer • I Still Know What You Did Last Summer • I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer I Know... cast Sarah Michelle Gellar • Freddie Prinze, Jr. • Jennifer Love Hewitt • Ryan Phillippe • Johnny Galecki • Anne Heche • Muse Watson • Bridgette Wilson I Still Know... cast Jennifer Love Hewitt • Freddie Prinze, Jr. • Brandy Norwood • Mekhi Phifer • Matthew Settle • Jack Black • Bill Cobbs • Jeffrey Combs • Jennifer Esposito • John Hawkes • Muse Watson I'll Always Know... cast Brooke Nevin • David Paetkau • Torrey DeVitto • Ben Easter • Seth Packard • K.C. Clyde • Clayton Taylor • Michael Flynn • Brittany Nicole Leary • Star LaPoint Crew William S. Beasley • Neal H. Mortiz • Jim Gillespie • Kevin Williamson • Danny Cannon • Trey Callaway • Erik Feig • Sylvain White • Michael D. Weiss Related topics I Know What You Did Last Summer (novel) • Lois Duncan (author) • "How Do I Deal" (song) • Ben Willis (character) • List of characters in the I Know What You Did Last Summer trilogy