How do you make a body-swap comedy even freakier?
In Disney’s Freakier Friday, a sequel to the 2003 comedy classic, director Nisha Ganatra adds a multigenerational twist when Tess (Disney Legend Jamie Lee Curtis) and Anna (Lindsay Lohan) trade places again — only this time, they’re not trading with each other.
Twenty-two years later, Tess is now a successful psychologist who is about to embark on a book tour, while Anna has her hands full managing a famous pop star, Ella (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), and being a single mom to 15-year-old surfer Harper (Julia Butters). When Anna meets Eric (Manny Jacinto), a single dad to 15-year-old fashionista Lily (Sophia Hammons), it’s love at first sight. But as they navigate the challenges that inevitably arise when two families merge, Anna and Tess soon learn that lightning can, in fact, strike twice.
“The whole concept of a body-swap comedy is, ‘Walk a mile in my shoes and then see the world through my eyes,'” Curtis said in the video, above. “And in our case, it’s four different perspective shifts.”
Although Curtis and Lohan had done it before, they — along with Butters and Hammons—agreed that learning each other’s mannerisms and quirks proved to be quite complex. “Of course I watched the original movie, but it was really about just observing one another, or even just hanging out [with each other],” Hammons said. “You can’t really rehearse that.”
Butters, who would rehearse her dialogue with Lohan, added, “There was a lot of work that I did, on- and off-screen. And even as we were filming, we were always finding new things.”
Curtis admitted it was “trickier” to play someone as prim and proper as Lily, who is “very body conscious and fashion-forward.” “Playing a [typical] teenager, all you have to do is slump. In my case, it’s a British teenager who’s very conscious of her image, so it’s subtler.”
Undeniable Chemistry
Ganatra said she signed onto the film for two reasons: “Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan.”
“It was a dream to direct those two,” she said. “I think something Disney does that is really special and unique is it brings this magic and this joy, and I just wanted to experience that.”
The “ultimate freakquel” also features Freaky Friday‘s Rosalind Chao, Chad Michael Murray, and Mark Harmon reprising their respective roles as Mama P, Jake, and Ryan. “It was so important to keep the world of the first movie alive, but also to make this a standalone film,” Ganatra said. “If you watch this movie and you don’t know anything, it still comes across as its own movie. But if you are a fan of the original movie, you’ll see easter eggs throughout, you’ll recognize the characters, and you’ll see how they’ve all grown together.”
Freakier Friday offers audiences even more of what they loved about the first movie, from Anna rocking out with her Pink Slip bandmates again to a ceaseless number of visual gags.
“I think whenever women can do physical comedy in a movie, it’s a plus,” Lohan said. “Look at someone like Lucille Ball, who was known for a lot of that. To be able to throw that into a movie, there’s nothing funnier.”
Butters added, “People are like, ‘She’s a delicate flower. Don’t let her get hurt.’ When it’s like, ‘No, I’m going to throw myself on this floor right now — and it’s going to be hilarious!”
As for performing with Pink Slip again in Freakier Friday, Lohan said, “It was very surreal, and really fun and exciting. There’s a different kind of energy when you have all of the Pink Slip band [back together], because we were so close making the first Freaky Friday. We all hung out together, all the time. To have a real reunion on set was such a beautiful thing.”
Fun for the Whole Family
To this day, Freaky Friday remains a career highlight for Curtis — an unexpected, last-minute role that bonded her to Lohan forever. And she counts Freakier Friday as another.
“The Disney combo is heart and humor. We know there’s a lot of humor, because it’s a body-swap comedy, right? But you have to match that with depth,” Curtis said. “It was really beautiful to watch these four artists, in these switched behaviors, find the depths of all of those realities. That’s really where the movie sings for me. That’s when I go, ‘Oh! Wow.’ You can make fun of my face all day long, but that alone is not going to satisfy you. And it was beautiful to watch these two very young people do it, as I watched Lindsay do it 22 years ago in the scene at Tess’ wedding dinner. I remember shooting it and thinking, ‘Oh! Wow.'”
When audiences see Freakier Friday in theaters, Lohan said, “I hope people get a feeling of love and togetherness and comfort. I hope they see how important it is to value your family, to understand each other, and to take the time to ask, ‘How are you feeling? Are you okay?'”
“I love multigenerational comedy. It’s the sweetest thing. I hope people see it with their moms, their daughters, their kids, and their friends,” Ganatra added. “The hope is that you walk away with a sense of joy… I hope it inspires people to stay a little closer to each other.”
