Fans of The Summer I Turned Pretty’s Lola Tung and Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story star Nicholas Alexander Chavez might be surprised to learn the duo was originally in the new I Know What You Did Last Summer film—until their scene got cut.
Director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson opened up to People about the decision to drop their part from the final version of the movie, which hits theaters on July 18.
“In every movie, it’s best laid plans, and then you edit the movie and you put it together and you go, ‘I love this in a vacuum. This is a fantastic scene. But it doesn’t fit in the movie,’” Jennifer explained.
Tung and Chavez had filmed a scene that was supposed to open the movie, but it ended up on the cutting room floor—not because of their performances, but because it didn’t quite serve the final vision for the film.
“It was just one of those situations where it had nothing to do with Lola and Nicholas — they are both so fantastic. I really would love to work with them again. I loved working with them. They did a fabulous job. But in the larger tapestry of the film, it just didn’t fit,” she said.
Cutting a scene is never easy, especially when it involves great performances from rising stars. But in the end, the director had to make a tough call to shape the best version of the film.
“It sucks because you don’t want to do that to those actors. And it sucks when you love something as a scene but that scene just doesn’t work in the final cut of the film,” she added.
Here’s hoping we’ll see Lola and Nicholas on the big screen together in the future—this time, with their scenes intact.
