Dave Benett
The Lindsay Lohan “Lohannassaince” is in full swing as the beloved actor once again returns to the big screen. While she’s busy promoting Freakier Friday — the sequel to Freaky Friday — Lohan opened up about why she didn’t act for many years, stepping out of the spotlight.
In a recent interview with The Sunday Times, Lohan spoke about her decision not to act for nine years between 2013 and 2022, after being a staple in tween and young adult movies in the late 90s and early 2000s.
“I wanted to take a minute,” Lohan told the Times. “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 surprised fans in 2022 when she returned to acting for Netflix’s Falling for Christmas — a rom-com that’s akin to those made popular on Lifetime and Hallmark. Lohan looked happier than she had in the later years she was in the spotlight, shrouded with controversy and legal troubles. This dubbed her new era as the “Lohannassaince,” and with her return for Freakier Friday, fans want to see more of her.
Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis attend the UK Premiere of “Freakier Friday” at Odeon Luxe Leicester Square on July 31, 2025, in London, England.
Dave Benett
But the issues she experienced with paparazzi and harsh criticism — much like other superstars of the time, including Britney Spears — Lohan says she still has “PTSD to the extreme” from those days.
“I don’t ever want my family to experience being chased by the paparazzi the way I was. They were terrifying moments I had in my life,” she continued. “The most invasive situations. Really scary. And I pray stuff like that never comes back. It’s not safe. It’s not fair.”
In Freakier Friday, the 39-year-old Lohan is playing a mother for the first time in her career to actor Sophia Hammons’ character Lily, who plays her stepdaughter. Much like the original story, there is a body-swap conflict between the two.
While Lohan has become known for this genre of film (Parent Trap, Mean Girls, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen), she also says she felt pigeonholed for much of her career. She references the 2006 film A Prairie Home Companion, which she acted in alongside Meryl Streep, saying that “even today I have to fight for stuff that is like that, which is frustrating.”
“Because, well, you know me as this — but you also know I can do that. So let me! Give me the chance,” Lohan continued. “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.”
Now that Lindsay Lohan is back in the spotlight, the Times interviewer asked her what advice she would give to her teenage self.
“I would say, ‘Slow down.’ Everybody back then was, ‘Go! Go! Go!” she said. “I wish somebody could have been behind me, saying, ‘You’re all right. You can slow down, kid.’
Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
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