Ethan Embry never actually liked the hit movie that made him a star in the 1990s until now
Ethan Embry admitted something to Business Insider when we talked to the actor at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this week - he hasn't always been a fan of "Can't Hardly Wait."
"If we did this interview two or three years ago, and you brought up the movie, my reaction would have been 'Uuuggggghhhh," Embry told BI.
But things have changed.
At TIFF to promote his new movie, the horror "The Devil's Candy," the 37-year-old actor admits he's finally come to terms that his role the late 1990s teen comedy is one many know him from.
"I now enjoy the celebration of it," Embry told BI. "It was just work, but I so remember fighting really hard for the role. I feel lucky that I have it as a piece of my past."
"Can't Hardly Wait" follows a night in the lives of a group of recent high school graduates as they all coverage at a year-end party. One of the main threads is awkward loner Preston Meyers (Embry) who spends most of the evening trying to profess his love to the school hottie Amanda Beckett (Jennifer Love Hewitt) by attempting to give her a letter her wrote.
But over the years thanks to home video and constantly playing on paid-cable channels, the film built a cult status that has followed the actors in the film to this day.
Embry said he finally began to acknowledge the movie being a major milestone in his career when he thought of the bigger picture.
"I can appreciate it more now," he said. "Who the f--k doesn't want, when they are nearing middle age, to look back on their youth in a celebratory way? So it's really a nice gift that has been given to me."
Though Hewitt took to Twitter earlier in the year trying to get momentum for a sequel to "Can't Hardly Wait" off the ground (Embry since then has said a sequel is only "hypothetical"), it doesn't seem like Embry has time to worry about it.
Along with "The Devil's Candy" he's in pre production on another horror and will be seen next year in the Netflix series "Grace and Frankie," starring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin.