Warning: Major SPOILERS lie ahead for I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)!The Fisherman is back, only this time, one of the people donning the killer moniker is sure to ruffle some feathers in the new I Know What You Did Last Summer. The fourth feature installment in the slasher franchise serves as a sequel to the first two movies, following a new group of young adults being terrorized by someone in The Fisherman garb after covering up their involvement in the death of someone a year before. As the stakes continue to rise, they turn to Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Julie James and Freddie Prinze Jr.’s Ray Bronson for help.

In the first two Summer movies, The Fisherman moniker was taken up by Ben Willis, who Julie, Ray, Ryan Phillippe’s Barry and Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Helen left for ᴅᴇᴀᴅ after he had killed the man he felt responsible for his daughter’s death. While the first sequel also included Ben’s son helping him, the direct-to-video standalone threequel brought Ben back as an unᴅᴇᴀᴅ spirit. Now, in the franchise’s biggest twist yet, the new I Know What You Did Last Summer has revealed both Sarah Pidgeon’s Stevie and Ray to be the new Fishermen terrorizing the central characters.

As audiences continue to process the surprising reveal, ScreenRant interviewed Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson to discuss I Know What You Did Last Summer. The legacy star opened up about Ray’s transformation into the Fisherman and why it actually excited him to explore this new layer of his iconic character, while the co-writer/director opened up about the exciting mid-credits scene and how it could set up a sequel to the new film.

Prinze Jr. Knows “Some People Will Get Mad” About Ray’s Killer Reveal

He Also Felt A Deeper Thematic Importance For This Twist

While the recent Scream movies have occasionally touted its returning characters as potential suspects for their new string of Ghostface killings, I Know What You Did Last Summer completely flips the legacy sequel formula on its head with the reveal that Ray is in fact the new Fisherman. As Prinze Jr. acknowledges, the decision is “a really big swing” for the franchise as Robinson, co-writer Sam Lansky and story co-developer Leah McKendrick “decided to break the psyche of Ray Bronson“.

The franchise vet went on to explain that there is actually a thematic significance behind his turn into a slasher in the film, recalling how the pitch was for his character to be seen as “a broken man” and that the sequel’s central idea is “Where is Ray and where is Julie at this point in their life?“. Recalling some of his early conversations with Robinson, the star shared how the co-writer/director looked at the real idea that “the same trauma can hit two people completely differently, depending on how you process it“, with the characters ultimately deciding “it can make or break you“.

“So, in Julie’s case, it makes her, and in Ray’s case, it breaks him,” Prinze Jr. describes. “He never dealt with it. He didn’t get to go to therapy, he didn’t get to talk about his feelings. He’s responsible for the feelings of anger and lust, like most men my age. That’s all we can emote is just, ‘That girl’s H๏τ. I want to fight you.’ And we don’t talk about anything else. And because of that, you kind of see this spiral over 25 years of not dealing with something.“

In addition to feeling “that’s what I needed” to motivate the way he played Ray in the new film, Prinze Jr. also praised Robinson as “she had all those answers for me” regarding how Ray could “have fallen this far“. Though he recognizes “some people will get mad” at the I Know What You Did Last Summer ending given “they love Ray” and “what he represented to them“, Prinze Jr. asks that fans “know that I gave everything to this performance” and “was excited to play this role“, even if having “to take that emotional damage home with me at the end of the day” was difficult on the star.

“To show up to work the next day, ready to do it again, is not fun,” Prinze Jr. expressed. “But in between the words ‘action’ and ‘cut’, it’s the most fun that I’ve had. So, it was something that was really special. And again, as a kid, I always wanted to be the monster in the monster movies. I wanted to be the man in the mask. And this was as close as I think that’s ever going to happen, unless I get to be the Predator one day or something. [Laughs]“

Robinson Has “A Plan In Mind” For The Next I Know What You Did Last Summer

She Also Found A Deeper Impact Behind The Movie’s Mid-Credits Cameo

While Ray’s turn as The Fisherman will arguably be the biggest surprise for many, I Know What You Did Last Summer‘s mid-credits packs another major surprise with the return of Brandy as Karla, reuniting with Julie for the first time since the events of the 1998 sequel. Robinson confirms she has “a plan in mind” for how this mid-credits scene will lead to a potential new installment for the horror franchise, laughing as she admits “I cannot tell you” anything about what it might be.

As for bringing back Brandy, who had expressed interest in returning and quickly thereafter confirmed talks with the production in its early stages, Robinson knew “I wanted Brandy in this film“, but also recognized that any Easter egg or cameo “had to be the right thing“, not just “for the character and the franchise“, but specifically for “this version of the movie and this story that we were telling“. Additionally, she felt that bringing Karla back was important for Julie’s journey as she “is a character who has shut everybody out“.

“She left Southport, she abandoned Ray, she doesn’t really have any friends,” Robinson described. “She lives by herself. So that person wouldn’t necessarily have kept up with anyone. And so, bringing them back together was really fun and I loved being able to do that.“

Stay tuned for and check out our other I Know What You Did Last Summer interviews with:

• Madelyn Cline
• Jennifer Love Hewitt
• Chase Sui Wonders, Sarah Pidgeon, Tyriq Withers & Jonah Hauer-King

Source: ScreenRant Plus