|
by Dennis Hensley
On a
playground not far from his L.A. home, Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Conrad Jackson, pals since
their high school days in Albuquerque, New Mexico, are shooting hoops and giving each
other a hard time. "Poor Freddie," Jackson
says of his friend Prinze, the 23 year-old She's All That heartthrob soon to be
seen in the romantic comedies Down To You and Head Over Heels, "his
basketball skills are no match for mine." Prinze refutes his buddy's diss by
sinking a few shots in a row leaving Conrad to explain that, for these two friends,
razzing each other is right up there with playing video games and watching the New York
Knicks play b-ball when it comes to favorite pastimes. "I tease Freddie a lot,"
explains Conrad, "especially about the way he dresses because it's not at all
cool."
"Used
to dress," interjects the Adidas-clad Prinze before going in for a lay-up.
"Freddie
would wear shorts that were like two times smaller than his waste size," continues
Jackson, laughing.
"They
were tight," admits Prinze. "Back in the day, I was a Polo
and Structure guy, but not anymore."
Jackson
affectionately tosses the basketball across to court to his friend of eight years and
concludes, "Hollywood's made his outfits a lot better."
Freddie
Prinze, Jr. may be dressing better these days -- he was looking pretty stylin' when he
picked up his Male Hottie of the Year trophy at the recent Teen Choice Awards -- but
that's about the only way he could be accused of going Hollywood. "He's the most compassionate,
down to earth guy you ever imagine," says Matthew Lillard who became friends with
Prinze when they were filming Wing Commander together in Luxembourg. "Every
time I'm around him we just have a blast." Rachael Leigh Cook, his co-star from
both She's All That and The House of Yes, agrees. "He was the same
both times I worked with him;" she says, "good-looking, sure, but also just
really cool and so mellow." Prinze even gets high marks from his
employers. "Everyone just adores working
with him because he's so passionate and hard working," says Bobby Cohen, one of the
executive producers of Down To You, in which Freddie plays one of five young
people coping with life after high school. "And he talks to everybody
whether they're the producer or one of the production assistants. He makes everyone feel really
invested in the process."
That
is when he's not tormenting them with his on-set pranks. "Freddie loves the power of
surprise," says one of his co-stars, newcomer Rosario Dawson. "He locked me in my trailer and
put toothpaste in my sandals. I got him back, of course, by toilet papering his
room." For Julia Stiles (10 Things I
Hate About You), Freddie employed the old cup of water on over the door frame trick. Repeatedly. "One day, the air conditioning screwed up and all the
condensation was above her door," says Freddie, while taking a snack break at a
picnic table near the basketball court. "Well, it all spilled on her
and she started cussing at me, 'Goddammit Freddie!' and I'm all, 'I didn't even do
anything'. I got a pretty good laugh over
that." Still, it was probably co-star Selma
Blair who caught the worst of Freddie's mischief-making. "I soaked her falsies in ice
and I put them back in her bra," he confesses.
"I probably
shouldn't have done that one."
In
spite of the off-camera craziness, the actor is pleased with the way the film came
together. "It's a great movie for people
who saw She's All That who are now a couple of years older," says Prinze,
who plays an aspiring chef in the film. "It's a movie about that time when you decide
'Do you do what your parents tell you to do or do you follow your dreams?'" And if that theme doesn't lure you
to the box office, there's Freddie's must-see dorm room love scene with Stiles. "It's all under the
covers," he explains. "You hear them talking and
she's like, 'Are you ready?' and he's like, 'I think so...oh my god, oh my god!' and it
turns out he's a ten second man." Prinze lets out a sheepish smile,
then adds, "It's very funny, much like my
first sexual experience."
Freddie
Prinze, Jr. will be the first to admit that he wasn't always the sexy and soulful cover
boy you see before you. "As a kid growing up in
Albuquerque, I did a lot of fantasizing about cartoons and super heroes," recalls
Prinze, who sites Batman and Spiderman as his dream roles. "The other kids thought I was
weird so they would throw rocks at me and call me names. Now, it's like, 'Oh, he's so
artistic." I do the same thing I did in the
third grade and now I'm considered cool." Prinze credits his mother,
Katherine, with teaching him to treasure his individuality. "She taught me to keep it real
and be yourself at all costs," he says affectionately, "and if somebody doesn't
like you for who you are, then you don't want to be friends with them anyway."
Prinze
never knew his father, comic/actor Freddie Prinze, Sr. The Chico and the Man star,
despondent over his divorce from Katherine, committed suicide when Freddie, Jr. was just
ten months old. Still, the younger Prinze says his
father has been an enormous influence on his life, particularly when it comes to steering
clear of the Hollywood fast lane. "I've never done drugs or even
smoked a cigarette because of my old man," says Prinze. "He had like four Quaaludes in
his system in the autopsy and so I'm like, 'Hmmm, I wonder why he killed himself'? I don't like the idea of being
controlled by something."
Prinze
admits that sharing his father's name helped him land an agent and manager when he moved
to Hollywood in 1994. Landing the jobs, however, was
something he had to do on his own. His first gig was four lines in the
sitcom Family Matters. Soon after, he made the leap to the
big screen with the tearjerker To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday. "I was so petrified I almost
threw up," recalls Prinze. "Everyday, I thought I was
going to get fired. In spite of his nervousness,
Prinze's performance in Gillian was well-received. But don't ask him to tell you about
it; he sat through the premiere with his eyes closed. "I couldn't watch," he
says, cringing at the memory, "but I've heard it and it sounded okay." And what about the reports that he
was sweet on his co-star Claire Danes? "Yeah, I had a crush," he
reveals. "She's a very artistic,
passionate, beautiful person but she had a boyfriend and I didn't want to be
disrespectful."
Other
roles followed including The House of Yes, Wing Commander and the I Know What
You Did Last Summer movies, which were not only big hits, but gave Freddie his
favorite souvenir from a movie to date. "I stole Ryan Phillipe's
letterman jacket from the first movie," he confesses. "I never lettered in anything
in high school so I was like, 'I'm going to get me a jacket.' Ryan doesn't know so don't tell
him." Then came She's All That
the sleeper hit that single-handedly positioned Prinze as a leading man for the new
millennium. "I knew that movie was going to
do huge business," he boasts, "because it treated its audience with respect. With every script I read, I always
try to see if it talks at me or to me. If it talks at me, I don't do
it."
Though
Prinze triumphed big-time in the film's climactic prom scene, he wasn't so fortunate in
real life. "I have bad luck at
dances," he laments, before launching into a story about the Winter Ball that really
lived up to its name in terms of chill factor. "I'm with this girl for like
two months, thought I was in love with her. So we got in a big fight at the
dance, caused a scene, and made up, or so I thought.
So we go back to the
hotel where we were staying, do our thing and I think we've made up. So I say, 'I think it's very good
that we were able to get over that hump,' and she was like, 'Um, I want to split up.' So I'm sitting there naked and
humiliated and she was my ride, because it was a dance where the girl asked the guy. So I just sat in the chair the whole
night while she slept, waiting for her to get up so she could drive me home. It sucked, man. We talk now and everything's cool,
but that night was not cool."
Asked
about his current romantic situation, Prinze lets out a sigh and reports that just weeks
ago, he split from his longtime girlfriend, actress Kimberly McCullough. "She bounced," he sighs
with a mixture of sadness and bewilderment. "Almost four years with that
girl, man, and then one day she just..." His voice trails off, unable to
finish the thought. "I guess my novelty wore
off."
So
what kind of woman does he hope to be involved with next? "I'm very simple and easy to
please," he says. "I just want somebody who's
nice and honest and beautiful on the inside and outside. They don't have to know what they
want, they just have to know that one day they want something."
Prinze
admits that when it comes to hooking up with a girl, he's not nearly as smooth as the
characters he plays. "I do all things you shouldn't
do," he laughs. "I'll buy way too many flowers
or write a poem and they'll be like, 'Oh my god, this guy's crazy'!" Prinze also figures he tends to hang
back too long, waiting to make sure that the girl is interested. "Because of that, I sometimes
fall into the friend category," he explains. "So if I'm dating you, let me
know. Tell me that you want to get kissed
or you might not."
Though
he may not be a pro when it comes to getting the date, Prinze has lots of ideas about what
to do once the girl says yes. "I'm sorry, but a movie is not
a romantic date," he scoffs. "You're not learning anything
about the person. You're not even looking at them. And you'll kiss a lot more if you
don't go to the movies." Higher on Freddie's
list of romantic evenings are ice-breaking activities like miniature golf, bowling or ice
skating. "You
gotta do something cheesy so you can laugh together," he explains. "And it's gotta be something
that you can maintain a lot of physical contact, like ice skating where you might slip and
they'll have to help you up and you have a nice moment. It's also good to do something where
the girl might win."
Like
his chef character in Down To You, Prinze is quite a whiz in the kitchen and
loves to woo a girl with his culinary creations. There's only one problem. "Girls in LA. don't eat
anything, man!" he exclaims. "I'm like, 'Here's some leaves
off that tree. Is that too fattening? You don't have to be as a big as a
board to be hot. I'm like, 'You look hungry. That's why I keep asking you if you
want to eat. I ain't kissing you till you're full
because I'm afraid you're going to bite my lip.' I like steak and fried chicken but
nobody eats that here."
Whoever
wins Prinze's heart next, really has her work cut out for her. In addition to dealing with Prinze's rebounding status, it
seems he's still pining away for his girlfriend from sixth grade, Kelly Haflin. "I asked her out and I was so
amazed that she actually said yes that from that day forward, I couldn't talk to
her," he marvels. "Six years later I'm 17, and
I'm supposed to be cool and I'm in the Banana Republic and I hear someone say, 'Can I help
you?' I recognize the voice as hers so I
turn around and there she is; perfect, like an angel, and her name tag says Kelly. I could tell that she sort of
recognized me and then... I ran! I ran out of Banana Republic!" Prinze shakes his head at the memory
then adds, "We never broke up so technically we're still together. I should probably apologize to her
right now because I've cheated on her like a million times."
As
close as Kelly is to Prinze's heart, she didn't get his first kiss. That honor went to the very
persistent Shannen Stelzer, who chased Prinze around the school yard in seventh grade. "She tried to kiss me and I was
like, 'I gotta go, I have tennis practice'," he recalls. "Now I have never played tennis
in my life. So the next day, she pinned me up on
the wall, put her arms around me and just planted one right on my lips in front of like
the whole school and I was just like, 'Oh my god.' I never kissed her again because I
was too scared so she broke up with me."
With
each hit movie, Prinze continues to transcend those early romantic foibles, becoming a
bonafied sex symbol in the process. "He's one of the most charming
young men you could ever hope to meet," says actress Saffron Burrows, who starred
opposite Prinze in Wing Commander. "He's also a very wise
man." Following Down To You, Prinze
gets the girl again in voyeurism comedy Head Over Heels, in which he plays a sexy
young charmer who Monica Potter spies on from her neighboring apartment. "My character runs around in
his underwear a lot," Prinze says, rolling his eyes, "so I had to look good in
that movie, but I worked out hard for it." By underwear, are we talking briefs
or boxers? "Boxers in life, boxers in the
movie," he says resolutely. "I can't mess with the briefs,
man. I gotta have room to breathe."
And
while we're on the subject of breathing room, Freddie Prinze, Jr. is one of the few
celebrities who you won't catch yammering on about downside of life in the spotlight. "I want people to know that the only reason that I have a
job is because they show up," says Prinze sincerely. "He's knows he's completely
blessed to be where he is," says his friend Matthew Lillard, "and he appreciates
every second of it."
Just
then, his buddy Conrad ambles up and tosses Prinze the basketball. Looks like someone wants a rematch. "The only negative that has
happened since I started working in movies," says Prinze as he heads back to the
court, "was that I had to move because people started knocking on my door." Unable to stay negative for long, he
tosses up a jump shot and adds, "But then I moved into a nicer house, so it was a
good thing too." Swoosh!
|