The director of the upcoming ‘Freaky Friday’ sequel revealed she ‘begged’ Jodie Foster for a nostalgic cameo, but the star refused.
‘Freakier Friday’ reunites Lindsay Lohan, 38, and Jamie Lee Curtis, 66, the stars of the beloved 2003 body-swapping film, while Jodie, 66, originated the role in the 1976 Freaky Friday that launched the franchise.
Nisha Ganatra, the director of the upcoming movie, revealed she tried to get Jodie to join the film — which is set to hit theaters August 8 — to no avail.
‘We begged her,’ Ganatra, 50, told Entertainment Weekly, before revealing that Jodie declined. ‘She’s not going to do it.’
‘Honestly, we tried everything,’ the filmmaker shared, explaining that she ‘never found out why’ the Silence of the Lambs star refused.
‘We were going to make her the principal at the school,’ Ganatra said, in reference to the school Lohan’s character Anna goes to.
Jodie Foster, 66, refused to do a nostalgic cameo in the upcoming Freakier Friday film, despite the director ‘begging’ her; pictured in February
The Freaky Friday sequel reunites Lindsay Lohan , 38, and Jamie Lee Curtis , 66, the stars of the beloved 2003 body-swapping film
Jodie originated the role in the 1976 Freaky Friday that launched the franchise; pictured in a still
The ‘Freaky Friday’ franchise launched with the 1976 hit starring Foster and Barbara Harris.
Before Lohan and Curtis led the successful 2003 remake, the series saw some TV movie sequels and a stage musical adaptation.
Foster previously recalled her contrasting experiences as a child actor in 1976, starring in the family friendly ‘Freaky Friday’ and the Oscar-nominated, R-rated ‘Taxi Driver.’
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In Taxi Driver, Foster, who was 12-years-old at the time, played the role of Iris Steensma, a teen prostitute.
‘[My mother] really wanted to make sure that I would go back and forth and do different kinds of movies and so that people wouldn’t pigeonhole me as one type of character,’ she said in a 2002 interview with NPR.
‘And at that time, you know, Freaky Friday was probably the first feminist movie out there for youngsters.’
Freakier Friday will follow a similar plotline to the first movie in which Lohan and Curtis’ characters switch bodies – but with a big twist.
The official trailer kicks off with Lohan (Anna) and her mom Curtis (Tess) talking to a fortune teller – played by SNL alum Vanessa Bayer.
As she gave them a reading, the fortune teller could be heard saying, ‘Your lifelines… it’s like they’ve intersected before! You’ve walked in each other’s path.’
Lindsay and Jamie then looked at each other and pretended to be shocked over the revelation.
However, the fortune teller added, ‘You learned a lesson. A lesson that may serve you again.’
The next morning, Lohan and Curtis wake up to shockingly realize they were no longer in their bodies and loudly scream into the mirror as they peer at their reflections.
‘We begged her… Honestly, we tried everything,’ Nisha Ganatra, 50 (pictured) the director of the upcoming movie, told Entertainment Weekly, before revealing that Jodie declined
Ganatra added that she ‘never found out why’ the Silence of the Lambs star refused to do the cameo; Foster seen in February at the Screen Actors Guild Awards
Foster previously recalled her contrasting roles at age 12 in ‘Freaky Friday’ and the Oscar-nominated ‘Taxi Driver,’ where she played a teen prostitute, noting her mother’s desire to avoid her being ‘pigeonholed’; seen in a 1976 still from Taxi Driver
But all is not what it seems when Lindsay’s daughter Harper (Julia Butters) and soon-to-be stepdaughter Lily (Sophia Hammons) appear to also be involved in the switch as well.
Curtis can then be seen dramatically saying, ‘My face looks like a Birkin bag that’s been left out in the sun to rot!’
The rest of the teaser shows snippets as the family figure out how to reverse the switch while pretending to be each other in their normal daily lives.
At the end, Curtis and Lohan strolled down a sidewalk while glammed up, with Jamie telling Lindsay, ‘Okay, I’ll let you know when it’s time for you to make your sexy grand entrance.’
She replies with, ‘Sexy grand entrance?’ and the scene cuts to Chad Michael Murray pulling up in a motorcycle and removing his helmet.
‘Oh, like that,’ Lohan says out loud which concluded the trailer.
The premise of the sequel is: ‘Years after Tess and Anna endured an identity crisis, Anna now has a daughter and a soon-to-be stepdaughter.
‘As they navigate the challenges that come when two families merge, Tess and Anna discover that lightning might strike twice,’ per an IMDB synopsis.
Other stars that have been cast in the movie include Manny Jacinto, Mark Harmon, Ryan Malgarini, Haley Hudson and Christina Vidal Mitchell.
Freakier Friday will follow a similar plotline to the first movie in which Lohan and Curtis’ characters switch bodies – but with a big twist; the duo seen April 3
The 2003 movie raked in $160.8 million in the box office on a budget of $26 million; Lindsay and Jamie Lee seen in a still from the Freakier Friday trailer
The ‘Freaky Friday’ sequel is set to hit theaters August 8
Late last year in November, Lindsay appeared on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon and reflected on reprising her role of Anna alongside Curtis in the sequel.
‘It’s just been such a labor of love to make happen,’ she gushed. ‘Jamie [Lee Curtis] and I… even at the table read, we were just smiling so big that we couldn’t…
‘I don’t think we were acting well because we were so happy. But the movie’s funny – it’s really funny,’ the Mean Girls actress added.
Freaky Friday (2003) earned positive reviews from critics upon its release and earned Curtis a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.
The movie also raked in $160.8 million in the box office on a budget of $26 million.