Actor Freddie Prinze Jr. known for his many rom-com movies speaks out on his “miserable” experience filming the 1997 slasher hit I Know What You Did Last Summer, telling the audience that he “almost quit.” This film was Prinze Jr.’s first major Hollywood movie and launched his career, but he says it clashed with director Jim Gillespie.

Deadline writes Prinze Jr.’s statement that appeared in a video interview with TooFab to promote his new podcast That Was Pretty Scary; Prinze Jr. said, “There was no passive aggressiveness — which I hate — (the director) was very direct in the fact that, ‘I don’t want you in this movie,’ So when that’s your first job, and you hear those words, it just wrecks you, man. It just wrecks you.”

On his podcast, Prinze Jr. called the film “a struggle every day,” where he nearly quit after describing it as a “near-death experience” after an alleged accident occurred while filming a scene on a motorboat.

Deadline continues to write how Prinze Jr. told Too Fab, “I almost caught a flight and went home. I was just done. I had enough. They had broken a ton of union stuff that they shouldn’t have done, like union rules and all kinds of things. I packed my bags that night. I was gonna just quit the business.”

Prinze Jr. stayed to finish the film only after a producer convinced him not to leave his co-stars Sarah-Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillipe.

Deadline writes about how Prinze Jr. stayed to finish the film and launch his career. Prinze Jr. tells Too Fab,  “In hindsight, I’m not upset. In hindsight, the movie launched my whole career… I wouldn’t have my wife (Gellar), I wouldn’t have all the other movies that I’ve done… I’m here because of that struggle and because of that pain.”

It has been reported that a sequel to I Know What You Did Last Summer is in the works, directed by Jennifer Catin Robinson, and Jennifer Love Hewitt and Prinze Jr. are in talks to reprise their roles.