Freddie James Prinze (born March 8, 1976) is an American actor. Prinze was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Kathy Elaine Cochran (née Barber), a real estate agent, and Freddie Prinze, an actor and comedian who killed himself in 1977 after Kathy had left him and had filed a restraining order against him (Prinze Jr. was 10 months old at the time).
Prinze's father was of Puerto Rican and German descent and his mother is of Italian ancestry. Prinze was raised Roman Catholic and embraces his Puerto Rican heritage. Prinze grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Puerto Rico. He learned about Spanish and Puerto Rican culture from his Puerto Rican paternal grandmother. He speaks Spanish and Italian.
Prinze showed an interest in acting from an early age and attended La Cueva High School in Albuquerque. After graduating in 1994, Prinze moved to Los Angeles to audition for television roles.
In the mid-1990s, Prinze dated actress Kimberly McCullough for more than three years. He married actress Sarah Michelle Gellar on September 1, 2002, in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, located at the southwest of México. The couple met several years beforehand, while filming I Know What You Did Last Summer, but started dating in 2000 and were engaged in April 2001. In 2007, for their fifth year of marriage, Sarah legally changed her name to Sarah Michelle Prinze.
Prinze is trained in several forms of martial arts, and enjoys tap dancing and collecting comic books. He is an avid soccer fan and supports the team Arsenal F.C., and is a fan of East Asian cinema. Prinze received a katana from Gellar in 2004 that she bought in Japan while filming The Grudge. Prinze is also a huge fan of WWE wrestling and was shown on television in attendance for Wrestlemania 24 and a ceremony for the WWE Hall of Fame.