The “perfect” movie Lindsay Lohan called her dream role: “You can’t take your eyes off her”
While it’s easy to dismiss her work as being nothing but romantic comedies and generic streaming releases, Lindsay Lohan was once considered to be one of the most promising young actors of her time, and hence it’s not fair to call her taste into question when she clearly aspires to emulate the most beloved stars of the golden age of Hollywood.
One of the most unexpected career resurgences of the past year has been that of Lohan, who finally found herself back at the centre of culture thanks to the long-anticipated sequel to Freaky Friday, in which she got to reunite with Jamie Lee Curtis for the first time since the 2004 original.
Although she had been appearing in a number of interchangeable holiday-centric romantic comedies that debuted directly on Netflix, the financial success of Freakier Friday suggests that she might be ready to take her career seriously once more.
Even before she took a break from acting and tried to remain somewhat obscure for a brief period, her skills as an actor were often discounted. Even if films like The Parent Trap or Mean Girls didn’t seem on paper like they were ‘prestige’, Lohan brought a depth and integrity to her performances that was hard to replicate. If anything, the dearth of teen-centric comedies that has emerged in the past decade would indicate that critics didn’t appreciate Lohan enough when she was at her prominence.
Of course, she isn’t blind when it comes to her place in cinematic history, and to her credit, she’s made the occasional effort to work with unique filmmakers like Paul Schrader and Robert Altman, who directed her in his final film, The Prairie Home Companion. In fact, the actor told Indiewire that her dream role was Margo Channing, the Broadway legend played famously by Bette Davis in Billy Wilder’s ‘Best Picture’-winning masterpiece All About Eve.
“In that movie, you just can’t take your eyes off her,” Lohan said, “It’s one of those movies you can never remake because it’s so perfect, but that would be the dream role to play, just the dialogue in it”.
There aren’t many classics of the golden age of Hollywood that are more beloved than All About Eve, which is both a celebration of the industry as well as one of the most grounded, sobering assessments of what it is like to be an actor, and even if many of the popular culture references may have aged, it’s easy to understand why someone like Lohan, who has experienced all the highs and lows of being a celebrity, would relate to a character like Margo.
Interestingly, her career is not dissimilar from that of Davis, who was also famous from a young age and heralded for being a generational talent, where ironically, All About Eve was considered to be a comeback role after years of starring in less highly-regarded films, which restored her place as one of the icons of the industry, leading her to a new act in her career when she appeared in other classics like What Happened to Baby Jane? and Death on the Nile.
All About Eve might be too famous and beloved for Lohan to ever star in a remake, but she might be able to find a similarly powerful role that could thrust her back into the spotlight, such that she can follow the same trajectory that Davis did into a new career arc.
