Elaine Hendrix Reminisces on "The Parent Trap" & Lindsay Lohan
When putting together the upcoming Freaky Friday sequel, director Nisha Ganatra had a brilliant beyond brilliant idea.
Not content with having Lindsay Lohan simply reunite with costar Jamie Lee Curtis in Freakier Friday—August's follow-up coming 22 years after the OG smash—Ganatra reached out to her longtime pal Elaine Hendrix to see if she was up for a bit of a reunion.
"I’ve done many projects with her," Hendrix explained to E! News’ Will Marfuggi at the film's July 22 New York City premiere. "So she texted me and she’s like, 'Hey, wanna come play—' and I said, 'Absolutely. Where do I gotta show up and when?'"
So 27 years after Hendrix faced off with Lohan (who famously starred as separated-at-birth twins Annie and Hallie) as the iconic villain of 1998's The Parent Trap, she shot a cameo in Freakier Friday as a magazine editor that is featuring one of the pop stars Lohan's Anna Coleman mentors.
"I have such a specific connection to her,” Hendrix noted of Lohan, "but she’s not that little girl anymore. She’s grown up. So it was like, 'I know you, but oh wait—you’re different now.' So getting to reconnect with her was so nice."
Working on the body-swapping comedy meant, "We got to have time to reminisce on set, and to play little games, and just catch up," Hendrix noted. "It was great."
In other words, they've come a long way from when Hendrix's Meredith Blake—the prickly publicist set to wed Hallie's father Nick (Dennis Quaid)—snarled, "I promise I will make your lives miserable from the day I say 'I do.'"
With Lohan based in Dubai with husband Bader Shammas and their 2-year-old son Luai, "We both have full lives," Hendrix acknowledged to Entertainment Weekly, "but particularly through social media and texting, we’re staying in touch, which is quite lovely. I’m so happy for her and where she is in her life."
And Lohan is far from the only Parent Trap alum to be living out their happily ever after. Say yes to checking in on where the cast is now.
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Lindsay Lohan
After pulling double duty as twins Annie and Hallie in her first major role, Lindsay Lohan went on to become one of the biggest young stars in Hollywood with Freaky Friday, Mean Girls, Just My Luck and A Prairie Home Companion.
After two DUI arrests in 2007 and some time in rehab, Lohan left Hollywood behind—following a turn as Elizabeth Taylor in the 2012 Lifetime movie Liz & Dick and a role in 2013's The Canyons—and resettled in London before later moving to Dubai.
She then became an entrepreneur when she opened two nightclubs in Greece, ultimately staging another comeback with her own MTV reality show, Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club, which ran for just one season (following in the footsteps of her notoriously shortlived reality series Lindsay on Oprah Winfrey's OWN). She also served as a judge on Australia's version of The Masked Singer.
In April 2020, Lohan relaunched her music career, releasing the pop single "Back to Me," which came almost 16 years after the release of her debut album, Speak.
And in 2022, she dove back into acting with her role in Netflix's Falling For Christmas, which she followed up in 2024 with Irish Wish. And then the Disney alum gave fans what they want by revisiting her Freaky Friday role for 2025's Freakier Friday with Jamie Lee Curtis.
Another major life win for Lindsay? She welcomed her first child, Luai, in July 2023 with husband Bader Shammas.
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Dennis Quaid
He owned a vineyard. He was a devoted father. He crossed the pond to win back his ex. Yeah, Nick was a total dreamboat.
Dennis Quaid was already one of Hollywood's most in-demand leading men before The Parent Trap, and he continued to star in successful films, including Frequency, The Day After Tomorrow and Far From Heaven. Most recently, he starred in Paramount + series Happy Face and 2024's Oscar-nominated flick The Substance. He also fronts the band, Dennis Quaid and The Sharks, which has been together since 2000.
Quaid split from Meg Ryan in 2000 after almost 10 years of marriage. They share one son, Jack. He would go onto marry real estate agent Kimberly Buffington in 2004, with the couple welcoming fraternal twins Thomas and Zoe in 2007. But after splitting twice in 2012 and reconciling in 2013, the pair called it quits for good in 2016, with their divorce being finalized in 2018.
After getting engaged in October 2019, Quaid married Laura Savoie in a secret elopement ceremony in June 2020 after initially postponing their April nuptials due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Following their engagement news, the actor defended his and Savoie's relationship and their 40-year age gap, insisting it "doesn't really bother" the couple.
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Elaine Hendrix
Get the picture?! Elaine Hendrix portrayed Meredith Blake, Nicky's young, hot and bitchy fiancée, which came after taking on the mean girl role in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion in 1997. What a legend!
Post-Parent Trap, Hendrix starred on FX's Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll and appeared on 90210 and Anger Management. And in 2019, Hendrix stepped into the iconic stilettos of Alexis Carrington for The CW's Dynasty reboot. She also appeared in 2024's A New York Story and reteamed with Lohan for Freakier Friday.
A huge animal rights activist, Hendrix founded The Pet Matchmaker, an organization that rescues animals and tries to find homes for them.
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Lisa Ann Walter
After playing Hallie's funny and caring nanny Chessy, Lisa Ann Walter went on to star in movies like Bruce Almighty, Shall We Dance? and War of Worlds, and she's made guest appearance on Grey's Anatomy, GLOW, The Odd Couple and other TV shows.
The stand-up comedian's memoir, which had the iconic title The Best Thing About My Ass Is That It's Behind Me, came out in 2011, and from then until 2014 she hosted The Fabulous Lisa Ann Walter Show, her own talk radio show on KFI in LA.
Despite playing rivals in the film, Walter and Hendrix have remained close friends, with Walter telling Vanity Fair, "Elaine is family. She knows all my kids, and we don't need anybody else. We have each other. Elaine's my sister now; I adopted her."
Most recently, Walter is best known for her role as edgy teacher Melissa Schemmenti on the Emmy-winning Abbott Elementary.
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Simon Kunz
After charming Chessy as Martin, Elizabeth and Annie's beloved butler, Simon Kunz went on to star in hit UK series Midsomer Murders, Sherlock and The Last Kingdom. Kunz also had a small role in Captain America: The First Avenger.
More recently, he's had small roles in F1: The Movie, Jericho Ridge and Rose's War.
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Polly Holliday
Polly Holliday ran a tight ship at Camp Walden as Marva Sr., but the actress was known for her sassy turn on the hit '70s sitcom Alice.
After The Parent Trap, the legend appeared films such as Stick It and The Heartbreak Kid, as well as popped up on the small screen on Home Improvement and The Client.
In 2000, Holliday was inducted into the Alabama Stage and Screen Hall of Fame. She also holds four Emmy nominations.
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Maggie Wheeler
C'mon, almost everyone knows Maggie Wheeler as Janice, her iconic character on Friends. (But, oh my gawd, she originally auditioned for Monica!)
Wheeler, who played Marva Jr., the daughter in the mother-daughter duo who ran Camp Walden, has appeared on countless TV shows, including ER, Friday Night Lights and Shameless, and has provided her vocal talents to Archer, the animated Batman universe and 2019's The Addams Family.
She's has been married to Daniel Borden Wheeler since 1990 and the couple has two children together.
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Nancy Meyers
One of Hollywood's most successful female filmmakers, Nancy Meyers is among the reigning rom-com queens.
As a director, writer and producer, she went on to helm hit films like What Women Want, Something's Gotta Give, The Holiday, It's Complicated (which earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture: Musical or Comedy) and The Intern, inspiring home decor, lifestyle and love life envy in most of them. She also served as a producer on Home Again in 2017, which was written and directed by her daughter.
On Instagram, Meyers continuously shares behind-the-scenes tidbits from her hit films, and in February 2020, she penned a Modern Love essay about her post-divorce friendship with ex-husband Charles Shyer that went viral. (He passed away in December 2024.)
In 2023, she was in the early stages of developing a rom com for Netflix, but the streamer ended up parting ways with the director before the project was completed.
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Hallie Meyers-Shyer
Before she went on to follow in her famous mom's footsteps, writing and directing 2017's Home Again, a rom-com starring Reese Witherspoon, Hallie Meyers-Shyer often appeared in her mother's films, including What Women Want and Father of the Bride. In The Parent Trap, she played one of Annie's camp co-horts.
Fun fact: Her sister's name is Annie, and Lohan's twin characters were named after the siblings.
She and partner Ophir Tanz welcomed son Julien Benedict in April 2021.
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Kat Graham
Bet you didn't know The Vampire Diaries star Kat Graham had a small part in the movie, playing one of Annie's camp BFFs in her first major on-screen role. Graham later revealed to InStyle that she kept her camp shirt from filming.
In addition to starring as TVD's Bonnie, Graham appeared in movies like 17 Again, How It Ends, Operation Christmas Drop and Tyler Perry's Duplicity and voiced April O'Neill in Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
In 2023, she married longtime friend Bryant Wood, who co-founded the wellness company Modern Nirvana with Graham and Frank Elaridi.
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Michael Lohan Jr.
That lost boy at camp who was actually the only boy at camp? He was played by Lohan's real-life little bro Michael Lohan Jr.!
While he went on to appear on Living Lohan, a reality show that followed the famous fam, he's now a businessman after graduating from Ithaca College. In 2017, he married Nina Ginsberg. They welcomed daughter Isabel Scarlet in 2021.