Freddie Prinze, Jr.

Freddie Prinze, Jr.
Prinze at the Tribeca Film Festival, April 29, 2007
Born	Freddie James Prinze, Jr. (1976-03-08) March 8, 1976 Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1995–present
Spouse(s)	Sarah Michelle Gellar (m. 2002)
Children	2
Parent(s)	Freddie James Prinze, Sr.(deceased) Kathy Elaine Barber

Freddie James Prinze, Jr. (/ˈprɪnz/; born March 8, 1976)^[1] is an American actor. He starred in several films, such as I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998), She's All That (1999), Summer Catch (2001), Scooby-Doo (2002), Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004) and Delgo (2008). Prinze has also had acting roles in television shows, including Friends (2002), Freddie (2005–06) and 24 (2010). He is the husband of Sarah Michelle Gellar and worked for WWE as a producer and director. He is currently the voice of Kanan Jarrus in the Disney XD series Star Wars Rebels.

Early life

Freddie James Prinze, Jr., was born in Los Angeles, California. He is the only child of actor-comedian Freddie Prinze and real estate agent Kathy Elaine Barber (b. 1950).^[1] Prinze, Sr., died by suicide by shooting himself in 1977, a year after Prinze, Jr., was born. Prinze grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was raised Roman Catholic,^[2][3] embraces his Hispanic heritage (his paternal grandmother was Puerto Rican),^[4][5] and speaks Spanish.^[5] After graduating from high school in 1994, Prinze moved to Los Angeles to audition for television roles.^[6][7]

Career

Television and film

Prinze was cast in a guest role on the ABC TV series Family Matters in 1995. He then appeared in a few 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. In his first leading role, the romantic comedy She's All That (1999), he was very successful at the box office. The film grossed $63 million in the United States.^[8]

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 critics^[9] and had moderate box office success.^[10]

In 2002, he played Fred Jones in the live action film version of the popular cartoon, Scooby-Doo, and reprised the role in the 2004 sequel, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, both alongside his wife Sarah Michelle Gellar. He guest starred on the popular NBC show, Friends, as a sensitive male nanny named Sandy on the series' 200th episode. 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, and lasted one season before being canceled in May 2006. He guest starred on George Lopez for a crossover with Freddie. In 2004, Prinze 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 Gellar, Wallace Shawn, Andy Dick, George Carlin, and Sigourney Weaver. In 2008, he auditioned for Jigsaw in Punisher: War Zone, but was not given the part at the decision of Lionsgate Studios.^[11] In 2010, Prinze guest starred on Psych as Dennis, a grade school friend of Shawn Spencer and Burton Guster.

He also voiced Tim and Jim Possible in the Kim Possible movie Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time.

World Wrestling Entertainment (2008–2009)

Prinze is a fan of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and was seen 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,^[12] and had created an official profile on WWE's "Universe" blog community where he would regularly write his thoughts about the current goings-on 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 contribute to weekly television and pay-per-view programming^[13] for the SmackDown brand.^[14] It was reported on February 22, 2009 that Prinze and WWE had parted ways.

Post-WWE

In March 2009, it was announced that Prinze had signed on to star as Bradley, aka Ultimatum in the ABC show No Heroics, a U.S. remake of the British show of the same name.^[15][16][17] The show was not picked up but Prinze was instead cast as a series regular for the eighth season of the television show 24, where he played, Cole Ortiz, a new CTU operative.^[18]

On August 17, Prinze appeared on WWE Raw as a Special Guest Host, and in the show, he was assaulted by then WWE Champion Randy Orton after refusing to bail Orton out of his tag team match with John Cena, who was due to challenge him in the upcoming SummerSlam.^[19] Prinze later returned to the program and got his payback during Orton's match with Cena against Big Show and Chris Jericho, by setting up a lumberjack match involving Mark Henry, Primo, Evan Bourne, Kofi Kingston, MVP and Jamie Noble, who all detested Orton and proceeded to give him a hard time during the match.

Return to World Wrestling Entertainment (2010–2012)

Prinze returned to World Wrestling Entertainment on October 1, 2010, in a role as producer and director.^[20] On the November 1, 2010 episode of Monday Night RAW, Prinze made an on-screen appearance as Vince McMahon's doctor, a dream sequence scene that coincided with Linda McMahon's attempt to win a seat in the Senate for the state of Connecticut.^[21][22]

Voice acting

He voiced a pilot in a Vatta's War: Trading in Danger graphic audio book. Prinze voiced the character Lieutenant James Vega in Mass Effect 3.^[23] He returned to the role of James Vega again for the animated feature film Mass Effect: Paragon Lost, dubbed by FUNimation. In 2014, it was announced he had joined the cast of Star Wars Rebels as the voice of Kanan, one of the last surviving Jedi knights.^[24] In 2014, Prinze voiced The Iron Bull, a Qunari mercenary, in the role-playing game Dragon Age: Inquisition.^[25]

Twitch

Prinze, a known avid gamer, started streaming a variety of different games at http://www.twitch.tv/jrtwitch1

Personal life

Prinze married actress Sarah Michelle Gellar on September 1, 2002, in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, in western Mexico. The couple met several years before, while filming I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997),^[26] started dating in 2000 and were engaged in April 2001. Gellar and Prinze have two children together: daughter Charlotte Grace Prinze (born in September 2009),^[27] and son Rocky James Prinze (born in September 2012).^[28] The family lives in Los Angeles.^[29]

Filmography

Film

Television

Direct-to-video

Video games

Awards and nominations

See also

• List of Puerto Ricans
• List of people whose parent committed suicide

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Freddie Prinze, Jr..

• Freddie Prinze, Jr. at the Internet Movie Database
• Jam! Movies interview (October 5, 2005)
• Hispanic Magazine interview (September, 2005)