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Cosmopolitan
an hour ago
- Cosmopolitan
Meet the Cast & Characters of 'Freaky Friday' Sequel, 'Freakier Friday'
Freaky Friday is back! The beloved early aughts body swap comedy has gotten a sequel, and the stakes have been raised. In the first movie, Jamie Lee Curtis' character Tess switches bodies with her teenage daughter, Anna, who is played by Lindsay Lohan. Curtis and Lohan are back for the sequel, but Freakier Friday sees four people switching bodies and being forced to live as each other. Now, Anna is grown up and is engaged to be married—just like her mom was in the original. She also has her own teenage daughter, Harper (Julia Butters), and her fiancé, Eric (Manny Jacinto), has a teenager, too, Lily (Sophia Hammons). All of them end up switching, with Anna and Harper trading places while Lily trades bodies with Tess. (That's right. Tess' swaps with her soon-to-be step-granddaughter.) A lot of the original cast returns for Freakier Friday, but clearly, there's some new additions, too. Read on to learn more about everyone involved, from the little brother who is all grown up to the teen idol who's now in his 40s! After some time away from the spotlight, Lindsay Lohan is back on the big screen. In Freakier Friday, she reprises her role as Anna, but this time she's an adult who switches bodies with her own teen daughter. Lohan is, of course, known for movies like The Parent Trap and Mean Girls. After some time away from movies, she made her return with a few Netflix films—including Falling for Christmas—and a small part in the Mean Girls musical movie. Instagram: @lindsaylohan Jamie Lee Curtis again plays Tess. Now, she's a grandmother, who is helping Anna get ready for her wedding. Curtis' lengthy career includes playing the iconic "final girl" Laurie Strode in the Halloween franchise, while recent projects include Everything Everywhere All at Once and The Last Showgirl. Instagram: @jamieleecurtis Julia Butters plays Anna's daughter, Harper. Harper loves surfing and her life in LA. She doesn't want her mom to marry Eric, and days before the wedding, she and Anna end up switching bodies. Butters is known for roles in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and The Fabelmans. Instagram: @julia_butters Eric's daughter, Lily, is played by Sophia Hammons. Lily moved to Los Angeles from London a few months prior to the film and she has some tension with Harper. Just like Harper want her father and Anna to get married, so when she and Harper switch bodies with Tes and Anna, they decide to try to break their parents up. Hammons' past projects include the film The Social Dilemma, the show Up Here, and the Disney Channel Original Movie Under Wraps. Instagram: @thesophiahammons Fiancé to Anna and father to Lily, Eric is played by Manny Jacinto. He is also a famous chef who opens his own restaurant in LA. The actor is best known for starring as Jason on The Good Place, and he's also had roles in Bad Times at the El Royale, I Want You Back, and the Star Wars series The Acolyte. Instagram: @mannyjacinto Mark Harmon returns as Tess' husband, Ryan, who she married at the end of the first movie. Harmon is known for starring in 19 seasons of the TV show NCIS. While he left that series in 2021, he is currently the narrator on the spinoff show NCIS: Origins. Instagram: N/A Chad Michael Murray plays Anna's crush, Jake, in the original movie. In Freakier Friday, Harper and Lily scheme to get Anna to fall for Jake again, so that she doesn't marry Eric. Murray was a teen idol, thanks to roles in One Tree Hill, Gilmore Girls, and Dawson's Creek. More recently, he's appeared in Riverdale, Sullivan's Crossing, and the Netflix movie The Merry Gentlemen. Instagram: @chadmichaelmurray Maitreyi Ramakrishnan plays Ella, another one of the new characters in Freakier Friday. Ella is a pop star that Anna manages who is finally making it big. Ramakrishnan even got to record a song for the soundtrack. Ramakrishnan is best known for starring in the series Never Have I Ever. Instagram: @maitreyiramakrishnan Vanessa Bayer plays a psychic, Madame Jen, who freaks Tess and Anna out by telling them the secret fortune that will help them unlock how to switch back. Bayer starred on Saturday Night Live for seven seasons. Her movies include Trainwreck, Ibiza, and Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar. Instagram: @vanessabayer Rosalind Chao is back for Freakier Friday in her role as Pei-Pei, the manager of the Chinese restaurant where Tess and Anna's body swap kicks off. Chao is also known for roles in the films The Joy Luck Club and the live-action Mulan, and in shows including AfterMASH, The O.C., Better Things, and Sweet Tooth. Instagram: @chao_time Lucille Soong also returns as Pei-Pei's mother, the woman who gives Tess and Anna the magic fortune cookies that switches them. Soong has had a long career in television and film. You may know her from one of her more recent projects, the TV show Fresh Off the Boat. Instagram: N/A In Freaky Friday, Christina Vidal plays Maddie, one of Anna's friends and bandmates, and she's back for the sequel. Vidal was already known for the Nickelodeon show Taina when Freaky Friday came out. More recently, she's starred in the shows The Terminal List and Primo. Instagram: @christinamvidal Another returning friend and Pink Slip bandmate is Peg, played by Haley Hudson. Hudson is also known for Marley & Me and Weeds. Freakier Friday is her first on-screen role in 11 years. Instagram: @hudsonrubinmusic Stephen Tobolowsky plays Anna's teacher, Mr. Bates, in Freaky Friday. He's the guy who gives her bad grades, because he's holding a grudge against her mother for turning him down when they were in high school. And, yep, he's also back for the sequel. The character actor has a lengthy resume, but you might know him from Glee or his recent work in Nobody Wants This. Instagram: N/A Anna's younger brother, Harry, is played by Ryan Malgarini. Obviously, he got his start as a child actor, but in more recent years he was in episodes of Mom and Teen Wolf. Freakier Friday is his first on-screen role in six years. Instagram: @ryanmagarini Jai is one of Harper's best friends who is kind of like her ride-or-die. Percy Jackson fans would be excited to see him back on the big screen! Jordan E. Cooper joins the cast as a character named Jett who works with Anna at the record company. Cooper is best known for his work in theater. He wrote and starred in the play Ain't No Mo', which was nominated for six Tony Awards. Cooper also acted in the TV series Pose. Instagram: @jordanecooper Chloe Fineman plays a new character named GiGi, who is an Australian dance instructor. Fineman currently stars on Saturday Night Live. She's also been in the movies White Noise, Babylon, and Megalopolis. Instagram: @chloeiscrazy Elaine Hendrix reunites with Lohan in Freakier Friday, but not because she was in the first movie. They worked together when Hendrix played the villain Meredith Blake opposite Lohan in The Parent Trap. So, it seems like the name of her character in this movie is a nod to that connection. Hendrix is also known for Romy and Michele's High School Reunion and the Dynasty reboot. Instagram: @elaine4animals
New York Post
2 hours ago
- New York Post
Jamie Lee Curtis boldly calls out ‘harsh' review of ‘Freakier Friday'
Jamie Lee Curtis is defending 'Freakier Friday.' The Oscar winner, 66, responded to Time magazine's negative review of her and Lindsay Lohan's body-swapping sequel. An excerpt of the review that was posted to Instagram on Friday read, 'No one, as far as we know, actually asked Disney for a sequel to 2003's buoyant, surprisingly unsyrupy generation-gap comedy 'Freaky Friday.'' 6 Lindsay Lohan, Jamie Lee Curtis in 'Freakier Friday.' ©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection The review also called out the film's 'ugly costumes' and 'humiliating scenarios,' adding, 'this is a sequel with the sole purpose of cashing in on the fondness people have for the original movie and nothing more.' Curtis reacted to the review by commenting, 'SEEMS a TAD HARSH. SOME people LOVE it. Me being one.' 6 Jamie Lee Curtis speaks during SiriusXM's Town Hall with the cast of 'Freakier Friday' on July 28. Getty Images for SiriusXM Her comment got over 17,000 likes as hundreds of fans responded with supportive messages. 'As long as you and Lindsay were happy making it and with it, I'm guaranteed it's iconic and a great watch,' one fan said. 'We all asked for it and we all love it,' a different fan wrote. 6 Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan in 'Freakier Friday.' ©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection Someone else responded, 'We can't wait to see it! People are so rude!' 'You should make part 3 to trigger Time magazine,' another fan said. Directed by Nisha Ganatra, 'Freakier Friday came out in theaters Friday and is a follow-up to Disney's 2003 comedy, in which mother-daughter duo Tess (Curtis) and Anna (Lohan) swap bodies. 6 Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis at Disney's 'Freakier Friday' press junket in Los Angeles. Miles Diggs for Disney Enterprises Inc./Shutterstock The sequel features a four-way swap that involves Anna's daughter (Julia Butters) and her soon-to-be-stepdaughter (Sophia Hammons). Along with Curtis and Lohan, Mark Harmon, Chad Michael Murray, Rosalind Chao, Ryan Malgarini, Stephen Tobolowsky and Lucille Soong returned for the sequel. On Rotten Tomatoes, 'Freakier Friday' has a 73% approval score from critis and a 93% approval score from the audience. 6 Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan in the 'Freaky Friday' sequel. ©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection The Post's critic Johnny Oleksinski gave the sequel 2.5 stars and called Curtis and Lohan 'the main attractions' of the film. ''Freakier' functions mostly as a nostalgia trip for 30-something ticket-buyers who can now legally enjoy a margarita,' Oleksinski wrote. 'But while massaging millennials, the movie also has a good time slinging mud at Gen Z.' During a recent interview with ABC 7, Curtis explained how she played a big part in getting the sequel made. 6 Jamie Lee Curtis attends the 'Freakier Friday' premiere in Australia on August 5. Brandon Voight / BACKGRID 'I kept saying, 'Well, you know what? We can't make a sequel until Lindsay's old enough to have a teenager,'' the actress said. 'They went, 'Jamie, she's 35.' I was like, 'She's not 35!' They were like, 'She's 35.' And I was like, 'Oh, sure! She could've had a baby at 20! Bob Iger!'' 'So when I got home, I called Bob and we talked about it, and now we're here,' she added.
Elle
5 hours ago
- Elle
Why ‘Freakier Friday' Director Nisha Ganatra ‘Would Do Anything' to Work With the Cast Again
Nisha Ganatra was a Lindsay Lohan devotee long before she learned she'd play a pivotal role in the Lohanissance. 'I wanted to be Lindsay Lohan,' the Freakier Friday director jokes. 'All of us were Lindsay Lohan. We all probably had some bad version of our own girl band because of Lindsay Lohan!' Freakier Friday does, indeed, feel like a movie made as much by a Freaky Friday super-fan as by an accomplished indie-film and television director—one who has since helmed comedy projects big and small, from episodes of And Just Like That... and Welcome to Chippendales to 2019's Emma Thompson-led Late Night and 2020's The High Note, starring Tracee Ellis Ross and Dakota Johnson. When Ganatra first met with Freakier Friday producer Kristin Burr in 2024 and Burr mentioned the project, it was all Ganatra could do not to jump out of her own skin. 'I immediately went home and called my rep and was like, 'Oh, my God,'' she says. Once she officially signed on, the pressure to do right by Lohan—and the entire Freakier Friday cast, not to mention the fans—set in. 'I didn't want to be the one that came in and botched the whole thing for everyone,' she continues. 'I mean, it's a core memory for most of us, watching this movie.' But it didn't take long for Ganatra to feel as though the stars were, literally, aligning. Original Freaky Friday co-stars Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis had already committed to reprise their roles as Anna and Tess Coleman, respectively. Other returning cast members fell in behind them: Mark Harmon as Ryan, Tess' husband; Rosalind Chao as restaurant owner Pei-Pei; Stephen Tobolowsky as high school teacher Mr. Bates; Christina Vidal Mitchell and Haley Hudson as co-members of Pink Slip, Anna's former band; and even Chad Michael Murray as Jake, Anna's high school boyfriend. Alongside these familiar faces, Ganatra helped usher in newcomers Julia Butters and Sophia Hammons as Harper Coleman and Lily Davies, the teen girls who inadvertently switch bodies with Anna and Tess in a four-way swap. Their constant bickering as soon-to-be step-sisters steers them into trouble, particularly as Anna (like Tess before her) prepares to marry her new love: Lily's father, Eric Davies (Manny Jacinto). Desperate to navigate the blended-family drama, Lily, Harper, Anna, and Tess consult Madame Jen (Vanessa Bayer) for a palm reading, soon triggering the magic that mixes up their bodies. The experience of filming Freakier Friday was, in Ganatra's estimation, nothing short of a thrill. 'I feel like I made my own indie film with total creative freedom within Disney,' she says. 'It's got to be a Disney movie, but I feel like I somehow pulled the wool over their eyes and made my own movie.' Below, the director walks us through the script evolutions that brought the film to life; names the Easter eggs you might have missed; breaks down that pivotal concert scene; and teases whether she'd return for a third, freakiest Friday. Jamie's really articulate and very smart about what makes movies work and what doesn't. She told me right away, 'This is what we did on the first one, and I think is why it worked.' She called Lindsay—and I didn't even have to see them together; I could just hear them speaking—and I knew we were okay. I knew that dynamic was set. They're actually friends in real life. They took on that mother-daughter type of energy and really love each other. They trust each other. And I think that's the whole thing. If you have amazing actors that trust each other, there's nothing you can't do. There was still some getting-the-gang-back-together work that needed to be done, but everyone was super game. Most of the calls were, 'Hey, would you like to come play in Freaky Friday again?' 'Yes, sign me up.' And that's such a testament to the producers and director of the first film. They left such a great feeling in everyone that they all wanted to come back. That made my job so much easier. One fun call I got to make was, we were filming a scene, and I really wanted Elaine Hendrix [who played Meredith Blake in The Parent Trap] to make an appearance. I called Elaine, and I was like, 'Would you please do a cameo?' And she just came out and did that. I was doing my fantasy version of this movie, hoping anybody else would catch on to all the little Easter eggs of The Parent Trap and Mean Girls. It's a little ode to Lindsay's [filmography]. Elaine's character is named Blake, so—little things are hidden in there. It was just our ode to all the Y2K hits that we love. October 3rd [from Mean Girls], obviously, was Anna and Eric's wedding day. Jamie's got her dress from True Lies on. Lindsay's red guitar is the same guitar [from Freaky Friday]. We got it from the first movie, so she was [using it] in her fantasy sequence in the opening of this one. [In the record store scene], [Curtis] was the one who, brilliantly, was like, "[The Britney Spears album cover] should be for the end. When Lindsay's flirting with Jake, I should be hiding behind Britney," [referencing the '...Baby One More Time' scene from the first film]. And then MUNA had done an amazing cover of Pink Slip's 'Take Me Away.' So they're in the movie as Ella's band. We just sort of filled [this movie] up with all the fantasy star players that we could. The biggest thing that we changed from the original script was that Jake would still have a crush on Tess. Before, Jake was in the script, but it felt like Jake was in it just to have him in it. So the added dynamic was this element of him still having a crush on Tess. And we were like, 'Oh, Chad's going to be in town [while the wedding scene was shooting], so let's put him in the wedding.' I was like, 'What if he has a girlfriend that looks like Jamie's character from the first film?' And [producer] Kristin [Burr] thought that was hilarious. So she was like, 'I'm going to get the dress.' With everyone, you could say your dumb idea and they made it better and better. Harper was originally into gaming, and I had zero interest in shooting somebody in front of a computer screen. So I was like, 'What if she was a surfer?' Because she was very into environmentalism. I wanted her to have a deep reason for why she didn't want to leave Los Angeles, so that it didn't just become a little fight between the two girls about London and L.A. Instead, it was like, 'This is my identity. I spend every day in the water. It's my life.' And then I got to do beautiful L.A. surfing scenes. I also thought it would be fun, when Harper and Anna body-swapped, to have Lindsay surf. Then Jamie came up with the idea of her playing pickleball. Everyone kept bringing it. Finally, I was like, 'Manny, what's your special skill?' And he's like, "I can kind of dance.' So then we write the dance lesson. Meanwhile, Manny's totally downplaying that he's the most amazing dancer in the world. And then Lindsay upped it all by inviting Chloe Fineman to play with her in the scene. And then Manny upped it all by being the best fucking dancer in the universe. And the producers upped it by actually getting the rights to ['(I've Had) The Time of My Life' from] Dirty Dancing, so I could shoot the scene to that [movie soundtrack]. You know when you're like, 'Wow, that was just my dumb placeholder idea, and now I'm actually filming it and it's so cool'? It was just like that. Also, I really wanted to change the fortune cookie bit that was in the first film: the reason the characters swap bodies. That was more challenging, I think, because there's the lore you want to be true to. But I also wanted to do something more current than the fortune cookie. I thought, Well, why does it have to keep being the Chiangs that do this? What if there's a new version of somebody who causes the body-swapping? I had known Vanessa Bayer for a while, and I kept thinking of her as this really bad psychic character. Vanessa took that and went to infinity with it. Had me rolling. The ending was being written all the way up until almost a week before we shot it. I had a really strong feeling about the duet: It had to be a mother-daughter duet. But I also had a strong desire to watch Lindsay get to actually play with Pink Slip on-stage, because she never got to in the original, as an adult, as herself. She got to play as Tess in her body, but she didn't get to rock out with her own band. And I think we all wanted to see that. So it was so many machinations: How do we get Lindsay out there as Harper? And then how do we switch them back so that Julia can sing as Harper? Oh, God, but she's Anna. Before the switch can happen, the lesson has to be learned. So how is the lesson going to be learned? That scene with Manny on the street in front of the restaurant had to get a lot deeper than it was written originally. The whole movie, kind of secretly, turns on Lily. Lily's the one who has to come to a realization before everybody can switch back. You realize, Oh, my God, this whole thing is all about Lily being afraid to let somebody else love her dad. When you realize that, it's such a beautiful story—because it's about chosen families. Families can break apart if you don't put the effort in to see each other, hear each other, and love each other. It takes effort from everyone to prioritize togetherness. That was the message I was interested in telling. Your chosen family can have even stronger bonds, because you're choosing each other, and you have to keep choosing each other. So, then, the concert was just icing. It's so hard because I probably would've answered that way at one point, but this cast is so fun and so special that I would do anything to work with all of them again. Julia Butters and Sophia Hammons—their talent is really exciting. So if there's a version where they switch bodies...I don't know. I think this franchise is sort of endless with all the things it can explore. This cast is dreamy. There was not one day that we didn't just laugh our asses off and have so much joy. Not one day. And that is the dream. When everyone's heart is in it, that's all you can ask for in life. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
