These 'Freaky Friday' Behind-the-Scenes Secrets Are Bringing Us Way Back
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Whether you're in the mood for a dose of nostalgia or looking for the perfect flick for family movie night, Freaky Friday is one of those crowd-pleasing comedies that has stood the test of time.
After Lindsay Lohan confirmed to Andy Cohen that a sequel to the film is underway (don't worry, Jamie Lee Curtis is on board too!), we couldn't help but reminisce about our favorite moments from the 2003 body-swapping comedy. Lindsay and Jamie Lee star—in the third iteration of the film—as Anna and Tess, a mother-daughter duo constantly at odds who accidentally switch places after an argument during an earthquake at a Chinese restaurant. The pair then hilariously navigate life in each other's bodies as Tess prepares to remarry and Anna's band is offered a gig that's too good to pass up.
While you prepare for the ultimate rewatch (it's available to stream on Disney Plus!), read on to learn more about the making of the movie, from casting surprises to hilarious behind-the-scenes secrets.
Lindsay had to help Jamie Lee with an iconic line.
Jamie Lee's "shut up!" line while mimicking Anna is one of the movie's most enduring moments. As it turns out, she needed help from Lindsay to get the delivery just right. "There's a way she says 'shut up' that I couldn't get," Jamie said in a behind-the-scenes interview. "She had to give me a 'shut up' tutorial because it’s a very specific way."
Chad Michael Murray was Lindsay's first on-screen kiss.
On a 2019 episode of Busy Tonight, Chad Michael Murray kissed and told, if you will, adding, "Jamie Lee Curtis was there and she was trying to settle the situation because Lindsay's nerves were all over the place."
And behind the scenes, Chad and Jamie Lee shared a kiss of their own.
In the same interview, Chad also revealed that Jamie Lee kissed him backstage to rid both him and Lindsay of their pre-smooch nerves. "At this point I went, 'Dude, I just made out with Jamie Lee Curtis. This is great,'" he told Busy Philips.
Lindsay's audition was deemed the 'worst' of the finalists' tapes.
The casting directors narrowed down their shortlist for the role of Anna to five actresses. In a 2005 episode of E! True Hollywood Story, director Mark Waters revealed that Lindsay's audition tape was the "worst one" they received. Despite the lackluster video, they still believed Lindsay was perfect for the part. "She had this amazing turbulence and energy, which we thought was going to be really interesting for the character." We bet they don't regret that decision!
Annette Bening dropped out of the movie six days before filming.
Mark told The Hollywood Reporter that Annette, who was on board to play Tess, was concerned that the script wasn't in a good enough place to start filming. "We kept on making promises that the script was going to get better and better," Mark said, "and she felt like we were really close to shooting, and it still had not gotten good enough."
Tom Selleck also backed out.
Annette's departure also lead to another star dropping out. Tom Selleck, who was set to play the role of her husband-to-be, reportedly didn't want to be in the movie without her. Mark Harmon ended up filling the role.
Jamie Lee was shocked to land the gig.
Ahead of the movie's 2003 premiere, the actress told The Telegraph that she was shocked when she was offered one of the movie's starring roles. "I was telling interviewers I was 44, a little chubby, my hair was grey, I was refusing to dye it, and I was content with my life," she said. "In this business, I've always known there's a point at which the best thing to do is gently back out of the door." Hmm, who's gonna tell her? (We'll just leave this right here.)
Lindsay and Jamie's Lee's secret text codeword was born on set.
In an interview with The New York Times, Jamie Lee revealed that she and Lindsay have a secret text codeword inspired by their behind-the-scenes antics. According to Jamie Lee, every time she gets a text from someone claiming to be Lindsay, she asks them to prove it by telling her which rap song the duo was trying to learn on set. "If she answers Justin Timberlake’s 'Like I Love You,' then I know it's Lindsay Lohan," she said. Might need a new code word now, Jamie and Linds!
That's not Chad on the motorcycle.
The One Tree Hill actor told Vulture that he wasn't allowed to ride his Freaky Friday character's Ducati motorcycle for insurance reasons. "When we’re driving down the street, and [Jamie's] snuggling up on the back of me? That's the stuntman."
Jodie Foster declined to play the role of the mother for a specific reason.
According to E!, producer Andrew Gunn reached out to Jodie, who starred in the 1976 film, to take on the role of Tess in the 2003 remake. She passed on it because she worried that her casting would be seen as a distracting stunt.
Lindsay chose to end her Hollywood hiatus to star in the movie.
Lindsay said the overnight fame following her starring turn in The Parent Trap was so intense, she decided to take a step back from Hollywood to attend school and live a normal teenage life. "I went to high school and I did two Disney Channel things which were fun, just to keep up," she told IGN in 2003. But when she got the script for Freaky Friday, she decided it would be the "perfect" comeback project.
Both Lindsay and Jamie Lee had to learn how to play guitar...
The on-screen mother-daughter duo took guitar lessons from Amir Derakh, a member of the band Orgy. Lindsay even reportedly practiced on her own for over a year before taking on the role. In a behind-the-scenes feature, she revealed that she held frequent band practices with Pink Slip, the movie's fictional band.
But their actual playing didn't quite make the cut.
Despite their best efforts, both Lindsay and Jamie Lee's playing was dubbed over in the movie by professional musicians. In 2022, Jamie Lee joked to Vulture that she "slayed" her guitar solo.
The song 'Ultimate' was added because Lindsay was 'annoyed.'
Speaking of learning to play guitar...although Anna is not the lead singer of Pink Slip, she gets a chance at the microphone during a performance of the song "Ultimate" at her mom's wedding. Why? Mark told Elle that the song was added to the movie because Lindsay was "annoyed" that she had learned the guitar for the movie and didn't have any big solo scenes that allowed her to show off her new skills. Hey, we get it, and we couldn't imagine the movie without the song—so, thanks, Linds!
Lindsay didn't want Anna to be Goth...
Although Anna embraced alternative style, she was originally supposed to be hardcore Goth. When Lindsay initially read the script, she thought that audiences wouldn't connect with Anna's gothic personality. "No one could relate to the character when she was really Goth. There was nothing there," she told Vanity Fair.
So she used her audition outfit to sway producers.
To get the powers that be to shift her character's style to something more mainstream, Lindsay showed up to her audition wearing the preppiest outfit she could find to prove her point. "My agent called and was like, 'What are you doing?!'" she told Vanity Fair. Despite her agent's hesitation, her trick worked, and her character was rewritten.
The movie almost had a different ending.
In the final moments, Grandpa and Harry come catastrophically close to opening the fortune cookies that would inadvertently trigger another body switch, until Pei-Pei, the owner of the Chinese restaurant, stops them just in time. The actors also filmed an alternate version in which they actually open the cookies, leaving audiences to wonder if they would swap bodies. The director didn't think it was funny enough though.
Speaking of the movie's final scene, it includes a pretty obvious editing mistake.
During a recent rewatch, an eagle-eyed fan on TikTok spotted an adult standing in for Annie's little brother, Harry, just as he is about to get tackled in the movie's final scene.
Chad was nervous to film one scene with Jamie Lee.
Chad told Vulture that the first scene he filmed was the flirty coffeeshop moment he shared with Jamie Lee. "It wasn’t uncomfortable flirting with Jamie; it was just nerve-racking to not screw it up. Like, am I flirting too much? Too little? Am I coming off creepy? You worry about all those things."
Ryan Malgarini was worried that he made things awkward for Jamie Lee.
Ryan revealed that the first time he met Jamie Lee, he told her that he loved her performance in True Lies, which includes a rather risqué scene. "That must've been super awkward for her for this 10-year-old kid to be like, 'I remember seeing you in lingerie,'" he joked to The Hollywood Reporter. "I remember her reaction being like, 'Oh, great. Awesome. Cool.'"
Jamie Lee's daughter gave her tough love advice for the role.
In an interview with the New York Post, Jamie Lee revealed that her daughter Annie told her she was "trying too hard" to act like a teenager after she visited the set early on in the shoot. After her daughter reminded her that she was "naturally immature" (ha!) and gave her "permission to let go," she was able to perfect her role.
One character from the 1976 film made an appearance.
Marc McClure, who played Annabel's love interest in the 1976 movie, made a 2003 cameo as Boris, a delivery man who drops by Tess's office. In a fun twist, his name was also Boris in the original film.
Quentin Tarantino was a fan of one particular scene.
Although award-winning director Quentin Tarantino might not seem like the type to watch a teen movie, he came up to director Mark Waters at a party to compliment him on the film's House of Blues scene. "He was like outlining why it was a genius scene and a perfect ending for the movie, and I was like, 'This is cool man. Quentin Tarantino was like, fan-geeking me,'" he told The Hollywood Reporter.
Lindsay's mom made a cameo in the movie.
In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment in the movie's final scene, Dina, Lindsay's mom, made a brief cameo as a wedding guest dancing with an older man.
Kelly Osbourne was in talks to play Lindsay's best friend.
Kelly sadly had to turn down the role of Maddie, Anna's best friend and the leader of their band Pink Slip, when her mother Sharon was diagnosed with colon cancer. "I was faced with the choice of a career or spending what could have been the last days of my mother’s life with her," she told People in 2013. Sharon later made a full recovery.
The cover of Tess's book might look familiar.
Throughout the movie, Anna (trapped in Tess's body) is tasked with promoting her mother's latest psychology book, Through The Looking Glass. In a fun nod to the film's body-switching premise and the novel's original cover, Tess's cover art features a woman looking at her younger self in the mirror.
Michelle Trachtenberg almost played Anna.
Michelle—who would've starred alongside Annette Bening—was starring in Buffy the Vampire Slayer at the time and was unable to make the shoot work around her TV schedule, producer Andrew Gunn told Cosmo.
Gwen Stefani was nearly part of the plot.
In the original script, Anna was a student journalist who was trying to get an interview with Gwen Stefani at the House of Blues—but Mark didn't like the idea that Anna and her mom would be too similar. "You have a nerd daughter and a nerd mom, and they're basically switching places and age in nerdom," he told The Hollywood Reporter.
'Lizzie McGuire' paid homage to the movie.
In a body-swapping episode entitled "Those Freaky McGuires," Lizzie and her brother Matt switch places for the day, resulting in hilarious results. Some believe Hilary requested the episode after she allegedly was passed over for the role of Anna.
Hilary Duff 'crashed' the movie premiere.
For a dose of nostalgic Hollywood drama, at this time, Hilary and Lindsay were famously squabbling over Aaron Carter, who both actresses dated in the early 2000s. The pair reportedly engaged in a "red carpet war," in which they crashed each other's 2003 film premieres: Hilary posed at the Freaky Friday premiere in April 2003, while Lindsay returned the favor at the Cheaper by the Dozen premiere in December.
Lindsay did her own nails for the movie—and sort of regretted it.
"It had to be consistently chipped," she told Vogue about her choice to have a grungy-chic manicure as Anna. "I always make these last-minute decisions for a character, but it bites me in the end. But it was worth it, 'cause it became a thing."
Photos of Jamie Lee and her real daughter are featured in the opening credits.
Freaky Friday's opening scene features depictions of mothers and daughters throughout various centuries, from Renaissance paintings to vintage photos. In a fun twist, Jamie Lee provided photos of her and her daughter, Annie Guest.
Christina Vidal didn't think the song 'Take Me Away' was any good.
Christina, who played Maddie, the lead singer of Pink Slip, told Cosmo that "Take Me Away" was difficult for her to sing because it was so different than the soul music she typically performed. She said the producers suggested that she try singing the song in a nasal tone, which she thought was going to sound "horrible."
But it ended up becoming a cult classic.
Despite Christina's initial concerns, the performance became one of the movie's most memorable moments. "It ended up being so huge and popular," she told Cosmo. "Obviously, I was wrong."
Jamie Lee and Lindsay had instant chemistry.
Lindsay and Jamie Lee told The New York Times that they had an "easy" on-set relationship. "Jamie showed up with such an infectious personality that set the tone," Lindsay said. "She immediately took me under her wing."
Mr. Bates's name paid homage to Jamie Lee's mother.
If you're a fan of the 1960 movie Psycho—a film in which Jamie Lee's mother, Janet Leigh, famously starred—you might have noticed that Mr. Bates, Anna's English teacher, was named after Psycho's Norman Bates.
Rosalind Chao almost didn't take the role.
Rosalind, who played Pei-Pei, the owner of the Chinese restaurant where Anna and Tess switch bodies, told The Hollywood Reporter that she was originally wary of taking the part because of Chinese stereotypes. After reconsidering, she decided to accept the role because her father owned a Chinese restaurant similar to the one in the film. "I don't want to reject that," she said. "I wanna embrace that."
Two versions of the movie came before it.
The 2003 flick was the third time this story came to screen. The 1976 version starred Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster, while Disney's 1995 made-for-TV version featured Shelley Long and Gaby Hoffmann.
Mary Rodgers wrote both the 1972 novel and the 1976 movie script.
Mary, who was the daughter of legendary composer Richard Rodgers, followed in her father's footsteps and wrote several musicals before transitioning to writing children's books. After Freaky Friday was published in 1972, she followed it up with several body-switching sequels.
Disney Channel released a musical spin-off.
In the 2018 version of the film, Katherine (Heidi Blickenstaff) and her 16-year-old daughter Ellie (Cozi Zuehlsdorff) accidentally swap places after shattering a magical hourglass and must find a matching version so they can swap back. The made-for-TV musical included several callbacks to the source material, including a dog named Boris.
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