Chase Sui Wonders plays main character Ava in "I Know What You Did Last Summer." (Lexie Moreland/WWD/Getty Images)
It must be terrifying to step into the lead role of a popular horror franchise, especially for an up-and-coming actress.
Apparently, this is no less true if your name is Chase Sui Wonders and you came to "I Know What You Did Last Summer" with experience in the genre. But the latest star in the IKWYDLS franchise says it helped to have a fan in the director's chair and a famous mentor on set.
After Sui Wonders's turn in the 2022 horror-comedy "Bodies Bodies Bodies" caught the attention of director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson ("Someone Great"), the filmmaker says she had the actress in mind when adapting 1997's "I Know What You Did Last Summer" (directed by Jim Gillespie) into the franchise reboot that opened in theaters on Friday. And for Sui Wonders, following in the footsteps of I Know What You Did veteran Jennifer Love Hewitt became far less daunting when the two performers met before filming began.
"The moment that I saw her, she just enveloped me in the most familiar hug that I've maybe ever gotten," Sui Wonders says of her first encounter with the franchise OG. "She was so present with me and patient with me. She wanted to hear all about my career, my life and my family. She gave me boy advice. She's like, 'Hop on by if you ever want a home-cooked meal or some more advice about your boy problems.'"
A similar dynamic takes place in the new I Know What You Did, when Ava (Sui Wonders) seeks out Julie James (Hewitt) to help put a stop to the murders. Hewitt's character gets involved after Ava and her college-bound group of friends unintentionally kill a local from Southport, North Carolina, in a similar setup to 28 years ago. Sui Wonders credibly portrays Ava's doubts about fleeing the scene, echoing how Julie felt in the original film. Reading the new script, Sui Wonders thought it was the right time to return to the series' evergreen terror.
"It's such a slice of Americana," says the would-be scream queen, who called from Los Angeles, where she was spending time with family after attending the film's premiere. "This idyllic sort of seaside town that is just totally flipped inside out and just ravaged by this tragedy. It really just scratches an itch."
Sui Wonders's guilt-heavy, live-wire performance provides a trusty support beam for co-writers Robinson and Sam Lansky's attempt to renovate I Know What You Did for a younger audience. The screen franchise, based on Lois Duncan's 1973 novel, includes a 1998 sequel ("I Still Know What You Did Last Summer") and a 2021 television series that lasted one season.
These days, Southport is a new-money destination, thanks to a developer who whitewashes the history of the town, including the 1997 massacre. Fishing boat workers are swapped out for frat guys in khakis and polo shirts. Those kinds of updates appealed to the young actress as she was searching for a larger studio project with a fresh take.
"With all this IP stuff floating around out there, it takes a really surprising take to make something that is exciting and appealing, especially to an actor and certainly to the audience members," Sui Wonders says. "The way that they approach it, I was like, 'Oh, oh, we're doing backflips in a different dimension here.'"
This rendition is also zeitgeist-y. Instead of Toad the Wet Sprocket and Korn on the soundtrack, the new film opts for Addison Rae and the 1975. Gabbriette Bechtel, a year after being shouted out on "Brat," appears as a true crime podcaster who refers to what happened to Southport as "gentrifislaytion." While the core quartet are -- of course -- being hunted by someone in a raincoat brandishing a hook, Ava and her friends reference memes and easily toss around therapy-speak.
At first, the modernity can be a little jarring, but Sui Wonders credibly delivers the Gen Z slang and tonal shifts. Robinson was looking for someone to also underscore the familiarity of a character like Ava. “I wanted a person who you watch and you’re like ‘God, I just want to be her best friend,’” Robinson says in a phone call. “And that is how I, Jen Robinson, feel about Chase Sui Wonders. Having that feeling, for her, made me [confident] that will translate on-screen for audiences.”
Like a lot of performers, Sui Wonders says she lacked confidence as a child. She was extraordinarily shy until she settled into a pair of skates and found her confidence on the ice of her native Michigan, where she learned hockey from a friend's dad who played for the Detroit Red Wings. Then her mom forced her to audition for "The Wizard of Oz" at a local community theater. She spent three years in the chorus mostly but eventually landed a coveted role: Veruca Salt in "Willy Wonka." She balanced acting and sports in high school where she joined the varsity ice hockey team which went on to win a state championship in 2013.
After graduating from Harvard in 2018 with a degree in film studies and production, Sui Wonders landed a role in the HBO coming-of-age show "Generation," as Riley, a popular high school student in a conservative community. Then came the role of Emma, a portrait of wealthy indifference in the Halina Reijn-directed "Bodies Bodies Bodies."
More recently, she's been getting "breakout star" attention as assistant-turned-executive Quinn Hackett in "The Studio," Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's satirical series about the movie industry. At first, she was terrified to improvise alongside a cast of comedy legends, from Catherine O'Hara to Ike Barinholtz. But once everyone was on set, she found it hard not to crack up between takes. In most episodes, Quinn whirls between biting confidence and ridiculous, pitiful one-upmanship.
"She's such a little terrorizing rat," Sui Wonders says. "While she is semi-well-intentioned, I like seeing her in positions where her mal-intentions get her into a completely outsize amount of trouble."
"The Studio" just amassed 23 Emmy nominations -- Sui Wonders was sadly not among them, landing her on many a "snubbed" list -- and it's already been renewed for a second season. The actress says she's spoken with Rogen and Goldberg about where to take her character next, but no matter where Quinn ends up, Sui Wonders wants to branch out, including directing more (she made a short film about attending a wake a few years ago) and perhaps returning to the stage (she recently took part in a table read of a new play to be directed by Michael Herwitz).
But she's also getting back to her roots in independent film. Alongside Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman, she'll be seen in the upcoming "I Want Your Sex," from Gregg Araki, "the father of queer independent cinema," Sui Wonders says. "All his movies, they leave you with the most unsettling kind of gut-wrenching feeling."
Speaking of "unsettling," in a good way, Sui Wonders seems to have impressed at least one of her co-stars on "The Studio" with her wry, offbeat sense of humor.
"I remember our first week, I made a passing reference to 'Austin Powers,'" says Barinholtz, whose character Sal, another studio executive, frequently butts heads with Quinn. "'Chase told me, 'That's a very important movie for me. I was nonverbal until a late age, and it was only by imitating Fat Bastard that I was able to find my voice.'
"I think about that a lot. It's one of the funniest things I've ever heard a person say."