Why Jennifer Love Hewitt Is 'Terrified' for Her 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' Return (Exclusive)

Jennifer Love Hewitt has mixed feelings about playing Julie James once more.

In an interview with ET, Hewitt confirmed that a third I Know What You Did Last Summer film is "in the cooker," and revealed that she's "honestly terrified" about starring in the iconic part once more. That fear, Hewitt told ET, is all because "it's 26 years later."

The first film hit theaters in 1997 and told the story of a group of teenagers involved in a hit-and-run who wound up being terrorized by someone who knew what they had done. Its sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, debuted the following year.

Even with the fear, Hewitt said that, should the third movie move forward, she's ready to bring Julie James "back with 26 years of angst, knowledge, kickassery, which I'm turning into a word, and have some fun."

News broke in February 2023 that a third movie was in development, with Hewitt and her co-star, Freddie Prinze Jr., set to return as Julie James and Ray Bronson, respectively. Then, more than a year later, more details about the project came to light, including its planned release date: July 18, 2025.

"It honestly is wild to even think about," Hewitt told ET. "If it truly comes together I don't even know how I'm gonna feel except extremely overwhelmed and grateful, but it's wild to think about... It's nice to know that people are excited at the possibility. I think it would be really fun if it came together."

As for what she hopes to bring to the character more than two decades later, Hewitt quipped, "I think the big thing that I would like to do is maybe tone my mom arms a little bit. That would be nice."

"I think there's power in being older. There's power in having gone off and had three kids," the actress, who shares Autumn, 10, Atticus, 8, and Aidan, 2, with husband Brian Hallisay, said. "There's a sense of, like, I can do anything now. The vulnerability that was Julie James in one and two definitely doesn't exist in this one. I'm excited to just show her grown up."

The adult version of Julie James, Hewitt teased, "has got to go nuts."

"I don't know who she's fighting, but whoever it is is not gonna stand a chance; between me and a stunt double, we got this," she said. "That's all I can say."

Looking back on the original film, Hewitt said that landing the role "was a manifestation for me."

"I had auditioned for other movies, I was in other things, but I definitely said to my mom and my agent, 'I cannot like be the lead in a movie until I'm at least 18 or older because I want to be able to work all the hours. I want to be there. I want to do it,'" she recalled, before revealing that she was initially put up for Sarah Michelle Gellar's role of Helen Shivers.

"I went in to audition for Sarah's part in the movie and I was like, 'It doesn't feel like me,'" Hewitt said. "They said, 'OK, well, what do you want to do?' I was like, 'I want to audition for Julie James. That's what I want to do.' They were like, 'OK. Well, go outside. In 10 minutes you have to come back in and audition for Julie James.' I just knew that I was more her. When they said I got it I like lost my mind."

Hewitt described the success of the film as "wild," before explaining why making the second installment was even better than the first time around.

"The first one, I was terrified," she said. "I was like, 'Am I messing up the entire movie?' I couldn't sleep [when] we were doing the first movie because I literally would be up until the middle of the night with somebody chasing me and then they'd be like, 'OK, it's wrap. Go home.' How does one sleep during this process?"

"But the second one was just fun. It was fun," Hewitt continued. "I got to make her tougher. She'd been through so much already and she wasn't quite as vulnerable as she was in the first one. It was just silly, and fun, and we got to go to Mexico, and Jack Black was in it. It was just the best."

These days, Hewitt is busy with many projects. She penned a book, Inheriting Magic, and is currently starring on ABC's 9-1-1, which will air its season 7 finale May 30.

"You can expect it to confuse you emotionally in all the right ways. It's going to be intense," the actress behind Maddie Buckley said. "The thing that I can say about this finale that's different from any finale, at least for Maddie, is that I get to end it OK... I get like an easy finale, but it's a good one."

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