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Cook and “She’s All That” costar Matthew Lillard also reveal how it feels to have their 1999 movie remade.
After the success of “She’s All That,” Miramax was hot to get out another film from director Robert Iscove and at least one of its stars, Rachael Leigh Cook and Freddie Prinze Jr.
But Cook lost out on the followup project after failing to talk another young actor into signing on with her.
Noting that “She’s All That” was at the forefront of the teen movie craze of the late ’90s and early 2000s, Cook told Reporter Door she was approached to appear in a film called “Boys and Girls” shortly after.
“Miramax said, ‘We’re making this with either you or Freddie. Rachael, if you can convince Tobey Maguire to do this movie, we’ll make it with you guys. Otherwise we’re gonna go make it with Freddie and somebody,’” Cook claimed when we spoke with her and Matthew Lillard for “He’s All That.”
She tried to get him on board … but it didn’t go well.
“I met with Tobey Maguire and I said, ‘So, what do you think about the script?’ He said, ‘It’s not good. I don’t want to do it,’” she recalled. “And I was like, ‘Okay …. so what do you want to eat?’ It was clear that there was no convincing him.”
Prinze Jr. wound up starring in the 2000 film, which was a critical and financial dud.
Lillard, meanwhile, joked that he was “never really in that world” of teen films because actors had to be “a ten” to appear in them. “I was more like a four,” he deadpanned, saying he was mostly relegated to “best friend”-type roles.
“You were a 10,” he said to Rachael, “I was Freddie’s sidekick.”
Lillard, now 51, and Cook, 41, return to the teen beat in “He’s All That,” a gender-flipped remake of their 1999 film. This time, however, they’re playing the adults — with Cook on board as Addison Rae’s mom and Lillard playing the high school principal.
When asked if it was a badge of honor or simply a reminder of the passing of time to have one of your earlier projects rebooted, the two were brutally honest.
“Both, solid 50/50. Super surreal,” said Cook, “but yeah I told Matthew I take the whole thing as a gigantic compliment. Maybe that’s a coping mechanism of mine but it’s going very well.”
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“I feel really good today, tomorrow I’ll be a mess,” added Lillard. “The only thing that was really unnerving was the fact that half of the cast was not born before the movie came out. They have the upside of life. I’m on a downward slope.”
“They have so much to look forward to, don’t they?” asked Rachael, before Lillard added, “Global warming, fascist regimes” … and probably another remake two decades from now.
“Yes!” exclaimed Lillard. “We’ve already decided we’re going to be grandparents! Our dance sequence will be at like the kids getting married!”
And we’ll be there to watch it.
See the two back in action when “He’s All That” hits Netflix on August 27, 2021.
Everett Collection/Reporter Door
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