Lindsay Lohan Says She Has to ‘Fight’ for Serious Roles
Lindsay Lohan believes she was pigeonholed in her acting career.
The 39-year-old star, who has been on the press circuit lately for Freakier Friday, recently spoke to The Times U.K. about feeling stuck in her early career while trying to champion herself for other kinds of roles.
“I was so thrilled to work on A Prairie Home Companion, and yet even today I have to fight for stuff that is like that, which is frustrating,” Lohan told the Times’ Jonathan Dean. “Because, well, you know me as this—but you also know I can do that. So let me! Give me the chance. I have to break that cycle and open doors to something else, leaving people no choice. And in due time, if Martin Scorsese reaches out, I’m not going to say no.”
Dean reminded Lohan about a quote she gave an interviewer when she was 17 years old talking about wanting to take on a role about a woman who gets an abortion. However, she expressed hesitation at the time because losing her virginity on camera would likely halt any future opportunities to play innocent teen roles again.
“But I still think like that now,” Lohan said. “I’m never looking to do something that presses too many boundaries. I tried that when I was younger, I didn’t love it. I don’t want to do something that will cut my whole fan base off, the people who have been with me for so long, who will love Freakier Friday. I want to respect the people who have kept me here.”
“I mean, perhaps I was previously in marketing?” she added with a laugh. “But I think that way because my life was so public at such a young age—out there for people to see and interpret for themselves—and so I’m always thinking what the public perception of me is. Whether it’s a role or a color I wear, I always think what the perception will be—that’s important to me.”
After starring in major Y2K-era films like Mean Girls and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, Lohan took a hiatus from the acting world, only to return in 2013 with The Canyons and, more recently, Falling for Christmas in 2022.
“I wanted to take a minute,” Lohan said about her break from Hollywood. “I was losing that feeling of excitement about doing a film, and I wanted to live my own life for a bit, figure out how to have a more private life, a real life. I wanted to wait to get that itch again.”
Lohan is currently starring in Freakier Friday, a sequel to the 2003 Disney film, alongside Jamie Lee Curtis. That ’03 Friday was the third film adaptation of Mary Rodgers’ 1972 novel Freaky Friday, following versions in 1976 and 1995. Freakier Friday will hit theaters on August 8.