Ryan Phillippe thought his parents ‘were gonna disown me’ after Cruel Intentions

Ryan Phillippe revealed he was afraid his parents Richard and Susan ‘were gonna disown me’ over his twisted and sexually charged role in Cruel Intentions.

He was 23-years-old when he filmed the 1999 teen drama, which was based on the same French novel as Dangerous Liaisons.

Appearing on Barstool Sports’ KFC Radio, the ex-husband of Reese Witherspoon shared that his daring early work was a sharp contrast to his traditional Christian schooling.

He was still attending New Castle Baptist Academy in Delaware when he became the first gay teenager on a daytime soap opera.

Ryan played the role of Billy Douglas on One Life To Live beginning in 1992, the year he celebrated his 18th birthday.

‘So like my first role ever, though, coming out of the Christian school when I was a senior in high school, I played the first gay character on a soap opera, first gay teenager ever and so I was shunned at that point. So they were already out of the picture,’ he said of his background. 

The controversial Cruel Intentions, which was about prep school teens, even shows a sexual dynamic between Ryan and his stepsister played by Sarah Michelle Gellar.

‘I mean this was 1992, and I was playing a gay teenager and I was in a Christian school. They weren’t…they weren’t happy about it, but so when I was doing the [1997] movie I Know What You Did Last Summer the same producer had the script for Cruel Intentions and I read the script in my trailer during the shoot,’ he said.

Ryan explained that ‘we were near the end of shooting I Know What You Did Last Summer and he’s like: “I want you to take a look at the script.” He’s like: “It’s kinda, you know, it’s a little risky – risque or whatever.” He’s like: “But take a look at it.”‘

I Know What You Did Last Summer and Cruel Intentions both had among their producers Neal H Moritz who has also worked on the Fast & Furious franchise.

‘But I was like, I remember walking out the trailer and finding him. I’m like: “Are you guys really going to make this?”‘ he said with a laugh.

He dished that he has ‘never played a character like that since’ and confessed that ‘I wanna get back to playing a character like Sebastian in Cruel Intentions. It was just so fun to be so flippant and sort of, you know, theatrical.’

Cruel Intentions starred Ryan opposite his real-life girlfriend Reese, whom he married in June 1999 three months after the film was released.

At the time of their wedding Reese was pregnant with their daughter Ava, 21, and they now also have a son named Deacon, 17.

Ryan and Reese divorced in 2008 and she is now married to talent agent Jim Toth with whom she shares another son, Tennessee, aged eight.

Although Reese and Ryan’s marriage did not survive their movie has remained a cult classic more than two decades after it premiered.

‘It’s cool that it holds up, man. You know, a lot of times you take a movie from a specific point in time that’s supposed to connect with a younger crowd and it just stays. This movie somehow finds new fans all the time,’ Ryan said on KFC Radio.

‘You know, they were going to do a series about Cruel Intentions, a TV series a year or so ago. There’s like a musical out there that’s really good actually. They put it back in theaters for its 20th anniversary. That only happens with like The Godfather,’ the Hollywood star said.