Why ‘Freakier Friday' Director Nisha Ganatra ‘Would Do Anything' to Work With the Cast Again

Elle

3 days ago

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.