'Freaky Friday' sequel puts Lindsay Lohan back in spotlight with 1st big-screen lead role in over 10 years
FILE - Actress Jamie Lee Curtis (L) and actress Lindsay Lohan (R), stars of the new Disney film "Freaky Friday," pose as they arrive for the premiere of the movie at the El Capitan theater Aug. 4, 2003, in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Carlo Alleg
LOS ANGELES - Lindsay Lohan is going to be back on the big screen in a major way with her upcoming role in the "Freaky Friday" sequel.
This week, Lohan posed with co-star Jamie Lee Curtis to announce the project. She shared the image of the pair sitting in front of swapped trailers in keeping with the film’s theme, writing in the caption, "The Colemans are back and coming to theaters in 2025! The sequel to Freaky Friday is now in production!"
The 2003 film starred Lohan as Anna Coleman and Curtis as Tess Coleman, a mother-daughter duo who come to understand each other better following body-swap hijinks.
"Freaky Friday 2" is set to open in theaters in 2025, and plot details are currently under wraps.
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Both Lohan and Curtis have teased the sequel over the past couple of years.
In 2022, Curtis said during an appearance on "The View," "I've already written to Disney, my friends at Disney," referring to her recent role in the "Haunted Mansion" movie.
She even had a pitch, explaining, "Let me be the grandma! Let me be the old grandma who switches places. So then Lindsay gets to be the sexy grandma, who is still happy with Mark Harmon in all the ways you would be happy with Mark Harmon. … And simply, I would like to see Lindsay be the hot grandma, and I would like to see me try to deal with toddlers today. I want to be a helicopter parent in today's world as an old lady."
In 2023, Lohan told Bustle, "I can’t say much, but we are going to be doing it. I hope it’s sooner rather than later."
FILE - Lindsay Lohan attends Clarins New Product Launch Party at Private Residence on March 15, 2024, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Olivia Wong/Getty Images)
The sequel is Lohan’s first significant theatrical role since 2013’s "The Canyons," though she has appeared in several streaming projects since then after overcoming highly publicized legal and substance abuse problems in her youth and welcoming her first child last year.
Lohan had her breakthrough role in the 1998 Disney remake of "The Parent Trap," playing twins Hallie and Annie to critical acclaim.
That was followed by her appearance in "Freaky Friday" with Curtis and another Disney film, "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen."
In 2004, Lohan became a mega star with her role as Cady Heron in "Mean Girls," the beloved teen comedy.
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But with her success came the attention of paparazzi and a reputation as a party girl, and her work began to be affected.
Production on her "Mean Girls" follow-up in 2005, "Herbie: Fully Loaded," was shut down for three days when Lohan was hospitalized for "exhaustion."
Lohan was hospitalized again in 2006 while filming "Georgia Rule" with Jane Fonda for being "overheated and exhausted," according to her representative at the time. In a leaked letter, the head of the company producing "Georgia Rule" blasted Lohan over her "various late arrivals and absences from the set."
A year later, she entered drug rehab during the production of her film "I Know Who Killed Me."
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Just two weeks after leaving rehab, Lohan crashed her Mercedes-Benz convertible and was arrested and charged with DUI, cocaine possession and driving on a suspended license.
The arrest marked the beginning of Lohan's legal woes and substance abuse problems. By 2012, she had made 20 court appearances, completed six rehab stints and been incarcerated six times.
During that time, her career suffered, plagued by box office and critical failures. In 2013, she appeared in "Scary Movie 5" in a cameo and played a lead role in the erotic thriller "The Canyons," which she also produced.
"The Canyons" marked her last significant role for over a decade.
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Lohan went on to make a handful of TV appearances on series like "Eastbound & Down" and "2 Broke Girls" and a lead role in the British TV series "Sick Note."
She also dabbled in reality TV, first with an eight-episode series titled "Lindsay" on OWN in 2014, chronicling her sobriety journey and work to rebuild her life after all her legal woes.
In 2019, she starred in "Lindsay Lohan’s Beach Club" for MTV, which documented the expansion of her business empire, managing a beach club in Mykonos, Greece.
While not appearing in any TV or film projects, Lohan had gone abroad to focus on entrepreneurship, opening three beach clubs in Greece between 2016 and 2018.
"There’s a business side to my life now, but I’m not in America, so no one knows about it, which is nice for me," Lohan told the New York Times in 2018, "because I get to actually focus on the result of things."
The "Prairie Home Companion" star moved to Dubai that same year, later telling Allure the move happened "organically."
"Dubai gives me that space to have my own vision of what I need to do next," she said.
Dubai is also where she met her now-husband Bader Shammas, telling the outlet that after meeting him at a restaurant and talking for hours "… then I said to him, ‘I feel like you're the person I'm going to be with forever.’ I'd never been able to talk to someone like this."
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Shammas proposed to Lohan while filming her first significant comeback film, the Netflix holiday romcom "Falling for Christmas."
Ahead of the film’s release, Lohan told Forbes she felt a renewed "excitement" for showbiz.
"I don’t think much differently of it," she said of her views on Hollywood. "I think maybe because it has been so long that I’ve been on set, it was like a new excitement that I haven’t felt in a long time. Everything was refreshing to me. It was just a whole different way of starting, getting on set and making movies again that I really missed that I didn’t realize how much I had missed."
Lohan also executive produced the film and told Forbes she was thrilled to be more involved in the filmmaking process.
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"When we started filming the movie … I was like, ‘Oh my god, I actually have more of a say on what happens.’ I always pay attention to all the little details on set, so to be able to have that kind of role now was really exciting for me. Also, the editing process and all the end after the movie is being put together, I really got to be fully involved in that. I threw myself into it, and it’s a different role that I really love, and I’m not looking to give up anytime soon. I’ve been on sets my whole life, so I feel like I have that to give now, so I want to use it," she said.
The 37-year-old married Shammas in 2022 and took a mini-break in 2023 when she welcomed her first child, her son, Luai, in Dubai in July.
By 2024, she was back with a cameo role in the musical remake of her hit film, "Mean Girls," and starring and executive producing her second film for Netflix, "Irish Wish."
In an interview with Bustle promoting the film, Lohan reflected on her rockier years in Hollywood and the impact it had on her career.
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"I feel like some of [my work] got overshadowed by paparazzi and all that kind of stuff when I was younger, and that’s kind of annoying. I wish that part didn’t happen," she told the outlet. "I feel like that kind of took on a life of its own. So, that’s why I wanted to disappear. I was like, ‘Unless there’s no story here, they’re not going to focus on just my work.’"
The break in Dubai also saw her focus on her personal experiences and build her family.
"I was like, ‘What if I never fall in love? What if this never happens?' And it took me just taking time for me for all those doors to open and the ‘yesses’ to come – the things I wanted to say 'yes' to," she told the outlet.
Lohan also said she’s involving her husband more in her work, telling the magazine, "He’s very intuitive and has a very good understanding of how things are going to work out in the end. He can kind of foresee things. So, I like getting his advice on everything and having him be a part of it. I just feel safer."
With "Freaky Friday 2" fully in production, she also has a third Netflix film, "Our Little Secret" co-starring Kristin Chenoweth, Ian Harding and Tim Meadows, scheduled for release later this year.