Back when Freddie Prinze Jr. starred in the “Scooby-Doo” films, there was a period of time when the beloved franchise left the actor feeling “so angry.”
In a recent interview with Esquire, Prinze Jr.- who starred as the Mystery Inc. gang member Fred Jones in the 2002 Warner Bros. film “Scooby-Doo” and 2004’s “Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed”- revealed he was asked to take a pay cut despite the cast wanting a raise for the sequel, which included his wife, Sarah Michelle Gellar, who starred as Daphne.
“I remember thinking, ‘Hold up, who’s giving them the raise? Me or y’all?’ Like we made you guys three-quarters of a billion dollars, you can’t afford to pay them what I’m making on this? Screw that,” the actor told the magazine.
— Photo: Diyah Pera/Warner Bros/Kobal/Shutterstock
He also addressed allegations that the studio had, at the time, publicized his salary in a magazine.
“My ego was so angry,” he said.
In the years following the release of the second film, Prinze Jr. began to develop a more “accurate perspective” on the popular projects, based off the famed animated mystery series “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!” that introduced four teenage detectives and their team’s mascot- a talking dog- to the world in 1969.
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“All these people that had grown up loving those [“Scooby-Doo”] movies started reaching out…and then I got what I felt was a more accurate perspective on what that movie meant to people,” Prince Jr. explained, noting that it was because he “was no longer viewing it through the lenses of the studio.”