Get the picture? More than three decades after Hayley Mills wooed fans in 1961’s The Parent Trap, Disney reboot the classic and produced an equally as big box office hit.
The 1998 film, which starred Lindsay Lohan as identical twins, Annie James and Hallie Parker, followed the sisters after they are reunited while attending the same Camp Walden summer camp ahead of their 12th birthday.
While the twins had no idea that the other existed — Annie lived in London with their mom, Elizabeth James (Natasha Richardson), and Hallie grew up in California with their dad, Nick Parker (Dennis Quaid) — they quickly bonded.
Sure, the girls had a battle of wits at the all-girls camp, but ultimately, they hatched a plan to switch places and with any luck reunite their parents. Hallie enlisted the help of the twins’ grandfather (Ronnie Stevens) and butler Martin (Simon Kunz) while getting to know her mum in England.
Annie, for her part, was tasked with breaking up their dad’s new relationship. Nick had fallen for a young 26-year-old named Meredith Blake (Elaine Hendrix) while her sister was away at camp, but luckily, Annie (who was pretending to be Hallie) had housekeeper Chessy (Lisa Ann Walter) in her corner.
Two decades after The Parent Trap hooked a new generation on the twin-switch story line, the cast virtually reunited. During their chat, the group remembered their late costar Richardson, who died in March 2009.
“Natasha had such an elegance and grace, and she was so maternal to me,” Lohan recalled in July 2020 while speaking with her former castmates and director Nancy Meyers.
Quaid added: “[She was] somebody so giving and glad to be there and transmitted that joy of being able to do what we do. It just made everything that much better.”
The following year, Hendrix exclusively told Us Weekly about how her villainous character has evolved over the years, revealing that many viewers now see Meredith as a badass female who knew her worth.
“One of the keys to playing villains is that the characters, you never think of yourself as a villain, like, ever. So Meredith Blake, no. Like to me, everyone else is catching up to everything I had already thought about her and that narrative Meredith thought about herself,” she said in June 2021. “So of course, she wasn’t the villain. Of course, she was the victim to these two little monster twins and their parents.”
Walter — who became real-life BFFs with Hendrix despite their characters hating each other — exclusively told Us in April 2022 that she would happily team up with the whole cast again for a sequel. (Yes, that means Meredith Blake would have to make a comeback of some sort.)
“I think it would be really fun if we were pursuing the story [of Chessy and Martin]. Because people all the time are like, ‘Why is there not a 2? Not a remake, but a Parent Trap where the Lindsay character grows up and they’re twins and they have to get Martin and Chessy back together,” Walter revealed. “People will come up with story ideas like that. … And of course [I’d love if] somehow Meredith is involved just because I would die to do another version of working with Elaine in those roles.”
She added: “My best friend is Elaine and we kind of got hit at the 20-year reunion mark [with new fans] because of the fact that they air it so frequently and new generations find it.”
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