“WHAT YOU ARE, IS WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN. WHAT YOU’LL BE, IS WHAT YOU DO NOW.”

—PARAPHRASED BUDDHIST QUOTE FROM THE TIBETAN BOOK OF LIVING AND DYING (1992). 

It's 5:30 AM in West Hollywood and I'm up late with Lindsay Lohan. Even though it’s still dark, she’s wide awake and ready to talk. Her inimitable voice, full of energy with that charmingly husky undertone, fills the room. I can’t quite believe it’s really her. In Fall 2024, yes, it’s 5:30 AM and I am in West Hollywood, but I’m solo in my apartment talking to an infinitely professional Lindsay Lohan dialed in from her home office in Dubai where it’s the civil, daylight hour of 4:30 in the afternoon.

Fresh-faced and bright- eyed, Lohan’s wearing a crisp striped cotton shirt, her hair long and blonde, and demeanor serene. She’s married to international financier Bader Shammas with whom she has a young son, Luai, born in 2023, and she’s a whole adult woman of 38 years old.

A wide, friendly smile at the ready, and when the actress realizes I’m calling from LA, she thanks me for being up so early.

‍It’s absolutely no problem to get up early to speak to you. So tell me about your day in Dubai. What kinds of things do you do differently there?

It’s still a city. So it’s pretty similar. I mean, I do anything that anyone else does in their daily life. I’m up with my son in the mornings, I do breakfast with him, go to my pilates, come home for lunch, and go to the park, the same things that any normal mom would do in their daily life. Or you would do in LA. I think the only difference is the time zone shift. There’s a big disconnect between when work starts for me and other places. I can do my work calls with New York at like three or four, around this time, and then LA picks up later.

So we’re here to talk about your delightful new holiday- themed rom-com Our Little Secret which streams on Netflix from November 27th. It’s the third movie in your major multi-film Netflix deal which was inaugurated in 2022 with a billboard over the Sunset Strip that shouted in foot-high letters: “ARE YOU READY FOR THE LOHANAISSANCE?” Would you say a few words about working with Netflix and the deal and how it’s worked out for you?

I love working with Netflix. I also appreciate that they’ve given me room to explore my craft as a producer, starting as an executive producer. With Our Little Secret, I got to really be a full-on producer, not just an executive. They trusted me with holding the reins and took my ideas and thoughts on board whether it came down to casting or costuming, and even some of the edits in the film. They’ve given me a different platform to learn [from] and stand on, which I really appreciate. And Netflix is a great community of people to work with. Their sets are always so fun and everything’s so organized and diligent, which I love. I’ve had such a great experience with them. We’ve transitioned together through three different movies, the first was Falling for Christmas (2022) and then Irish Wish (2024) which was a bit different, and this one is a bit different again. So I really love that I’ve been able to develop diverse characters and storylines with them.

A key point of this new film is the way it’s framed around a very definite 10-year cycle for your character Avery Becker, who is a high-flying marketing executive. In the opening credits, there’s a 10-year time leap between her breakup with her boyfriend and childhood best friend Logan, played by Ian Harding, and the main action of the movie. So to bridge the gap, Netflix curated a montage of cultural and technological milestones between 2014 to today— everything from the Ice Bucket Challenge to Cybertrucks and NFTs. Do you think that, in a way, you personally are also coming “full circle” after 10 years away? From leaving Hollywood and moving to Dubai in 2014, to returning to the industry on your own terms and starring in several big movies in 2024?

It’s interesting that you put it that way. Yes. I definitely think I felt a very full-circle moment when I was shooting at Disney again for Freakier Friday this summer. I actually said to myself, “This feels full circle.” Being back on the lot emphasized to me that I made the right decision to take the time away to really soul search, find out who I am, what I love, what I want out of life, and how I want to live my future. It came at the right time, it just felt like the right moment. So definitely I can agree with the “full circle” aspect.You hit that on the nose there.

A direct sequel to 2003’s Freaky Friday, Freakier Friday will hit screens big and small in August 2025. I saw some cute teaser images of you and Jamie Lee Curtis in the press when the shoot wrapped—you look like you had a blast. 

Yes, we did. I can’t say much more than that until next year, but I can say it’s a really fun movie and it has a lot more of everything. It has more fashion. It has more music. It has a lot more exciting stuff. The family dynamics are very different and there’s more heart in it because there’s more to work with.

So let’s get back to Avery and Logan and Our Little Secret. The plot starts with them losing their young love due to clashing career ambitions and picks up with them finding each other again by accident 10 years later as the new partners of siblings at a family Christmas. So as not to ruin Christmas for their hosts, they both have to pretend they’ve never even met each other, despite all of the deep emotions they’ve shared. That sounds complex, but it’s a comedy at heart, and you’re a great comedienne. How hard was it for you to find that balance in playing this character?

With Avery, she purposefully left everything that she grew up with, she’s been away and she’s really had time to find herself. She comes back with an idea of what she thinks will be right for her. She thinks she wants this perfect life with the whole family and everything. And, you know, maybe she’s not right. Maybe all these signs and all these little things that go “wrong” are happening for a reason. And she’s trying to ignore that. But she’s also coming into her own; she’s more perceptive than she was before she left. She sees signs that Logan hasn’t really changed, which is frustrating for her. So she wants to be his friend, and she wants to help him through his career obstacles. But there are still underlying feelings there, because they had such an intimate relationship in the past. They grew up together. So how do you really let that go? To me, it’s a story of letting go and trusting that everything will happen the way it’s meant to.

Absolutely. I mean, that he hasn’t changed is something that’s actually a positive for him in the end, that he’s still authentic and he never stopped loving her. She has to overcome those ideas she had in her head about what kind of life she wanted and decide not just to “settle” for him, the boy from her hometown, but to actively choose him, choose him to build a home with.

I think deep down she hopes that they can find some middle ground; she knows what’s right is right, but I think it’s scary for her to take that leap of faith.

Yes. The story is right there in the title: Our Little Secret. So it’s all about keeping secrets straight, being complicit together. It’s really fun how the scenarios play out where Avery has to lie and act, but it’s all with good intentions, to try to keep everyone around her happy. Also I loved your church performance. 

Thanks. I was nervous to do it because it was something I’ve never experienced. I was like, “How am I going to do this in front of all these people?” So I just went for it. And it turned out to be really fun to do that scene. It was fun to do all of the more comedic scenes. There were parts of this movie—for example, that whole scene at the veterinary clinic—when I read the script, I was like, “Oh, I’m not really going to have to do that on camera. They’re going to do that in a different way. It’s going to be ADR.” And then no, what was on the page was what I did. It was really fun for me to push that comedic tone, to push myself and explore other ways of just, you know, being funny. Those are the kinds of things I’ve never really done in my films before.

And each of those little gems string together to build a picture of Avery and what kind of good-hearted person she is. And then the ending, of course. [No spoilers!] To me it was like a Shakespearean play where all the crossed paths meet on one stage, and finally everyone’s true nature and identity is revealed.
That’s what I loved about this movie, everyone has their own individual stories and they’re all trying to figure something out. If you look at it, there’s actually no “serious villain” in this story. The plot plays out like a real life kind of experience: “If this happened, what would happen?” And “If that happened, what would happen next? How does it all fall together?” Which is a structure that I really liked. It was very lighthearted. And I feel like we don’t have enough movies like that these days. It’s just refreshing to see something that you can laugh with.

Absolutely. And you had lots of support in getting those laughs, with an incredibly funny cast [Kristin Chenoweth as the exacting family matriarch Erica, Jon Rudnitsky is Avery’s current boyfriend, Cameron]. It also includes Tim Meadows, who you’ve worked with several times before. When I started to watch I was like “Oh my God, I know who that is!” [Meadows played teacher Mr. Duvall in 2004’s seminal Lohan film, Mean Girls].

‍There’s so many times where I almost just couldn’t stop laughing with Tim, just because when he does his dialogue sometimes, the tone of his voice—it’s just impossible not to break out laughing. There’s Chris Parnell too, who plays the veterinarian. He was in Labor Pains (2009) with me. It really felt like working with family.

So what does the Christmas or the holiday season look like for you now in Dubai, now that you do have your own family?
Well, actually this year we’ll be stateside. But no, no matter where we are, we always do a Christmas tree. And now that we have our son, we’re going to do Santa, we’ll do decorating together. All that fun stuff. Last year we did it, but he was very small. This year, he’s getting bigger, so the holidays are getting more exciting, because we get to share it with our little one. It just makes it all the better and all the more special.

In a pop cultural way, you’re symbolic of the season.You know—“Jingle Bell Rock,” which you sing with the other girls in Mean Girls and also covered on the Falling for Christmas soundtrack. Christmas is just—it’s a “Lindsay Lohan” thing.

The Christmas spirit is in me.

Haha, it certainly is. Before talking to you today, I watched Mean Girls. Though the film is infamous for all of its snarky, “mean” one-liners—[I was struck by the fact] that actually the message is not about that at all. Watching it now as an adult, I found the conclusion which promotes everyone finding their own authentic identity, their own individual ways of being... so profound.
Yes! And even at that time, that message was almost “unacceptable.” You know what I mean? Like to show and promote young people coming into their own in that way, that was so far-fetched. I feel like when it came out it was a really different kind of movie and now—it’s just, as you said, so profound in relation to where we’re at today.

And then of course, if it was socially so different 20 years ago—it was that “pure” time when we didn’t have phones, or we just had a Nokia to text and that’s all.
I miss that actually! The good old days.

I think everyone who grew up during that bridge moment between analog and digital had high school years that were completely different to today. But with the Mean Girls reboot released in 2024 along with your hilarious Walmart commercials, that vibe has really come back around. How do you feel about the resurgence of everything to do with Mean Girls?

I think it’s great because it already came with an important message. I like that it’s still sending the right message to people— to stay true to yourself and don’t change who you are inside for other people. So it makes me happy that Mean Girls is still so relevant because all these issues still do go on in school. If a movie can bring light to it, maybe young people dealing with those issues will learn through seeing that. It’s hard sometimes to get kids to “listen to their elders.” So hopefully they’ll listen to a film.

What was it like to do the cameo in Mean Girls 2024, and take on a role that was already there in the original, but not your role of Cady? Did that feel weird?
No, it felt nice. I think I was five months—no, maybe I was six months pregnant at the time. So that was a little different. I love Tina Fey, and I loved working with her again. So that was really sweet. To be there with the new cast was nice. It was a really nice moment.

Cady Heron in Mean Girls was one of your most—I hate to use this word too much, but most iconic roles. How does it feel to have achieved “iconic” status—and also lived through it?

I feel a huge sense of gratitude just to have lived through so many different experiences in life. I really have seen it all. Also, it’s made me so much stronger. It’s made me such a strong woman. I feel I’ve empowered myself in a lot of ways and that feels great. I know myself now at this age, better than ever.

Now, it’s not hard for me to say “No,” especially when it comes to work. When I know I need my me time to balance my life out, it’s very easy for me to be like, “No.” I’m very picky about what I choose to do now. It has to be important and have a good message and something has to be worth it.

I really want absolutely everything I do to be in line with my values. Starting my own business and producing more things that I love are part of where I want my future to take me. So even if it’s a commercial campaign or something like that, it has to be something that I actually believe in. It must be a product I really like and enjoy using, or eating; I really do like tea, for example.

That’s good. I couldn’t open Instagram for a while without seeing your Pure Leaf Tea spots, where you lead a revolution in an office block so that people have more tea breaks. It actually conveys a great message—everyone is tied to the screens and their workstations and your character literally stands on a table in the middle of the work day and is like, “No, take a break, take back your freedom.”
That commercial is so fun though, which I loved. I mean, we all forget to stop and take a minute, just in life in general. Even when you’re filming a movie it’s always very “Go, go, go,” and then “Hurry up and wait.” Whenever it’s that wait time, I really treasure that wait time, and I take advantage of it and take that time for myself. I feel like we forget to do that. It’s okay to like, sit and not be on your phone for an hour. Or 15- 20 minutes at least. It’s actually good for you.

I’m in the crossover generation—I think the screen addiction isn’t as deep in me as today’s children who were all raised by iPads. I still like to read paperback books and just be in that space where there’s nothing bright in my eyes. I don’t know about you.
Yes—even for scripts. I’ll always get emailed scripts, and I’m like, “You know I can’t do that, please send me a hard copy.” I’m old school. I need to highlight. I need to make notes. I can’t do that on a screen. I’m just not like that. And there’s also something so sentimental about the pages, just to turn them, how they feel after you’ve written on them. It just feels different.

And then there are your other brand partnerships—I’ve also seen your spots for Nexxus which focus on your hair [in this casual afternoon chat moment Lindsay’s long flaxen- blonde tresses cascade perfectly over her shoulders].
Yeah, I went a bit lighter recently, just because I wanted a change after filming. It’s that blonde problem—it’s like, once you do a highlight, you want to keep going lighter. I’ll get over it in like a few months.

Do you think you’ll be back to your signature red at any time?
Yeah... I always do. I always do.

You’ve played so many icons. You’ve been Elizabeth Taylor, you’ve been others, and have been compared to many more. Any thoughts on icons you’d like to play or things you’d like to do with regards to those kinds of figures?

I don’t know... I mean, there is a role, of a story that I love, the actress Clara Bow. I love Clara Bow and her story was phenomenal. I find it so interesting. She was in the movie Red Hair and she was one of the first redheads. So telling her story could be something that interests me. Ann-Margret too, I love, I don’t know where, or what role, what roles I’ll be doing next. I’m looking at different projects now. You never know. I just feel like, if you sense that you have a great script when you read it, then you take it from there. So we’ll see what’s next. I’m working on something now, which is a series. I haven’t started it yet, but we’re working now on getting it done—we’re in the pre- pre- pre- of it.

Our lips are sealed, obviously. So for you, it’s about the script, and the passion and the intelligence within the script that delivers the character to you to interpret it? 

Yes. The writing is so important. And then also the team that you know is gonna be involved, and how you get along with them. You know, some people might be great, but you have to—I have to—connect with them too. So that’s important to me.

With all this in mind, you really seem that for a while now you’ve decided to become the Captain of your Destiny, 1000%. Would you say that?
Yes, I feel that. I really do feel that. Because everything is in your hands and life can be the way you want it to be if you have the focus and the determination. I also think, if you give yourself the right home base and setting. You have to surround yourself with the right people, I think that’s a really important thing. That way you can continue to stay humble, and live with gratitude.

How was returning to Paris Fashion Week this season? You went to the Balenciaga show?

 It was really nice. We actually stayed an extra week so we could enjoy the time, because my son came with myself and my husband. I love Balenciaga. I love Demna. I love what he is doing with the collection. I like how he’s not afraid to just express what he wants to do at the time, he wants to do it. I really appreciate and respect that. And it was a great show. I feel like it was the perfect thing because I went to just the one show, and that was kind of it. I saw so many friends that I haven’t seen in so long. It was a beautiful trip. And with the gown I had, I’m just, “I’m wearing this no matter what,” because it was a little tight here and there. But I was like, “We’re making it work! For Fashion! For Paris Fashion Week!”

The black sequin column dress was such an ultra- glamorous look.You also wore another show-stopping Balenciaga gown at the Vanity Fair Oscars party in March, in silver sequinned fringe. That’s an incredible union: Lindsay Lohan and Balenciaga. [Demna] really takes glamour to this impossible level.

Thank you. I think Paris Fashion Week too, it’s really that moment where you can, as a designer, really express yourself. To present the things that you’ve seen, that’s where you can really put into play, and to go full force.  I think that aspect of it is very cool, to not hold back. My brother Dakota was going to come to Balenciaga; he went to their last show that was in LA. He came to Saint Laurent with me in Paris a few years back, which was also a really great show.

Would you say something about your ongoing love for your siblings as your family—which as you have mentioned now includes your husband, baby, so it’s getting bigger and bigger.

I’ve always been close with my family. I’m the eldest, so I’ve always been the “big sister” to everyone. My star sign is Cancer. So yes, I am very maternal and I’ll always just feel the need to just check up on everyone, always watch out for everyone, make sure everyone’s good. And of course, I support my siblings in what they love to do. Aliana loves being a musician, she sings and writes. She loves writing her music. And Dakota is very artistic and creative. So I always just support him in that. He really loves acting. So I think that’s something he’s focusing on more now, with modeling as kind of just a fun thing for him. He’s just a great person. He has such a good energy. He has a really good heart too.

You’re such an involved songwriter. You’ve channeled so much of yourself into your lyrics and also expressed them in videos, especially in something like “Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father.)” Or even with your choice of material, like your “Edge of Seventeen” cover, you’re conveying something about your own emotional state. Are you too happy to write sad lyrics now?

No, I think you can always get in touch with parts of your life and that’s where some songs stem from because it’s reminiscent of moments in time. But I haven’t thought about really getting back and recording again yet, because I’m really focused on producing and acting and that’s where my life is taking me at the moment. So we’ll see. I mean, it’s never say never. I’d love to write something with my sister actually, because she’s a really phenomenal writer and lyricist.

I hope that you have time for that in the future alongside producing and your businesses. Can you tell me more about this transition from “just” acting to producing and making your own things to come?

There’re so many stories that I’ve come across, and books that I love that I would like to turn into something, whether it be a series or mini-series or films, that I would love to come on board and produce. They might not be right for me anymore. At the time I saw myself—that I could be in them. But now maybe I’ve outgrown some of them. These are projects that I really want to bring to fruition and make happen. So all of that, I’m looking into.

To conclude, I wanted to bring back this idea of “the evolution of Lindsay Lohan.” Do you look back on it yourself, or do you just go forward?

 I mean, I live from today. My life every day is a new day. I live looking forward towards the future. I live without regrets. I think everything that has happened, I’ve learned from, and I’m grateful for that. Because you know, everything is a lesson in life. It’s better not just to toss those lessons aside because you never know... you always want to learn from anything in the past.

***

As I switch off the screen to await the sunrise in LA, Lindsay continues her day in the glittering cityscape of Dubai—she’s got to be on a call with her New York agent in four minutes. Later, reviewing the interview transcript, I realized that “LOVE” is Lindsay Lohan’s most commonly used descriptor. She is in love, she loves, and she is loved. Lohan always had this huge well of love inside her, and that’s what made her sparkle on screen whether she played sweet or serious.

Lohan shares many of the positive qualities of the characters she’s played: she’s earnest yet mischievous, charming yet tough, courageous and independent. She’s unwilling to be exploited by outside entities or “the machine,” deciding to take back for herself the immense love that the generations raised by her image still feels. Any observation of the evolution of Lindsay Lohan from her very public youth to her now-private adulthood proves that the rapacious social media society that evolved right along with her is deeply flawed. A new day has dawned, and she’ll only accept deals in which all her abilities are allowed to shine through.

In the end, we can pick over Lindsay Lohan’s life until the Sun swaps direction and rises in the West. None of
that matters to Lindsay now. She’s in love, and literally and figuratively at the top of the world. Calm has conquered chaos. Her completely understandable angst has been exorcized. Today, she doesn’t need anyone’s approval whether it be a studio boss or a gossip reporter. Or me. Or you. Her boundaries are firmly in place and fiercely defended by all those close to her. Settled, secure and looking towards the future, she’s grown up.

I hope we have, too. 

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Photographed by The Morelli Brothers

Styled by Mackenzie Grandquist & Alexandra Grandquist 

Written by Hannah Bhuiya

Hair: Dimitris Giannetos at OPUS Beauty using Nexxus

Makeup: Ash K Holm at The Wall Group

Production: Creative P Studio

Executive Producer: Rafa Farias

Line Producer: Matteo Morelli

Digi Tech/Flaunt Film: Michael Seeley

First Light: Andrew Harless

Prop Designer: Marianne Lu

Photo Assistant: Justin Seeley

Stylist Assistants: Charlee Roberts and Jacquelyn Roberts

Production Assistants: Brigitte Gamil and Devin Grigorian

Hair Assistant: Autumn Skibinski

Makeup Assistant: Tanya Tello

Location: Dust Studios

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