It’s been 20 years since two Lindsay Lohans stole the hearts of moviegoers in “The Parent Trap,” the 1998 remake of the 1961 film of the same name. And Elaine Hendrix, who played Meredith Blake a.k.a. evil stepmother-to-be a.k.a. Cruella de Vil in the film, spoke with TheWrap about working alongside a young Lohan, Dennis Quaid and the late Natasha Richardson, as well as the famous lizard scene and the impact of the film on modern pop culture.
“It’s one of those things where, living it as intimately as I did, it feels like it was just yesterday. But on the other hand, it was 20 years ago!” Hendrix told TheWrap. “I have so many distinct memories from it but I’m also like, ‘dang where did the time go?!'”
She added that she sees people dressed up as Meredith Blake for Halloween, and said, “I had no idea it was going to impact people in this way. I had no idea you and I would be having this conversation now, 20 years later!”
Not only does she get recognized on the street (still to this day) but she said she receives a lot of fan mail from people sharing their personal story and connection to the film, which was directed by Nancy Meyers.
“One of the greatest moment from the film was when I received a fan letter from this young man in Russia, and he told me he grew up in an orphanage and they had nothing, but they would watch movies every Friday night, and ‘The Parent Trap’ was one of them,” she recalled. “How much joy that movie brought to the kids in the orphanage — I get really teary-eyed and I think, holy s—, that’s the beauty of Natasha [Richardson] and Dennis [Quaid] and this journey they took us on.”
Of course, Hendrix’s most iconic scene depicted her prissy city girl Meredith on hike with the twins (both played by Lohan) and their father — one that ended in a camping trip disaster: A lizard creeps into her mouth.
“What’s funny with Meredith is that she says she’s not a big outdoors type of girl, but me, I’m totally a mountain girl!” she said. “I love lizards and snakes and camping. That whole camping scene was 100 percent acting, and I had to fake that I couldn’t hike and that I didn’t like the lizard. Look, that sequence involved a real lizard, a toy lizard and a computer lizard, so watch and see what you think is what.”
Hendrix said she was the 433rd actress to audition for the role of Meredith Blake, and remembered a few moments from set, specifically involving Lohan.
“I remember Lindsay and I dancing a lot together in the hair and makeup trailer,” she said. “We hugged a lot. We rapped a lot — most of my scenes were with her and Dennis, so we spent a lot of time together. She was a hard worker, but she was still a kid and this business is hard enough so we had an extra sense of making it fun because she was a kid and we didn’t want to burn her out.”
She said she hasn’t connected with Lohan since filming on “The Parent Trap” ended, but she’s ran into Quaid a few times. Of course, the late Natasha Richardson was also an important part of the movie, and Hendrix said she recalled witnessing how loving Richardson’s relationship was with her husband Liam Neeson.
“She was so lovely — she just radiated everywhere she went,” she said. “She actually lit up the room and was so in love with Liam… it was so clear they were deeply in love and that was the real deal. My impression is that she comes across as this perfect mom and woman in the film, and she was very much like that in real life. I wanted her to be my mom!”
“The Parent Trap” will have a lasting impact on generations to come, said Hendrix.
“It’s always there in the culture somewhere,” she said. “It has this magic to do with the perfect storm, with Disney, Nancy Meyers, the cast, the script, the style, the location — capturing the remake of a classic movie for a whole new generation, capturing a universal theme of finding your tribe… It’s a wild phenomenon.”
'Jurassic Park' Turns 25: 21 Things You Probably Didn't Know About the Dino Hit (Photos)
Action adventure film "Jurassic Park" helped define modern blockbuster filmmaking. The Steven Spielberg monster hit, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, debuted in theaters on June 11, 1993 to audience raves. With so many famed actors and groundbreaking effects involved, the film's behind-the-scenes secrets are plentiful. Here are 21 super-interesting facts about the pioneering movie.
Michael Crichton began working on the novel that became the basis for "Jurassic Park" in the 1980s, writing from the perspective of a young boy at a theme park who was present when dinosaurs escaped. He received negative feedback from early readers and reworked the novel into an adult story. The book was published in 1990 and immediately became a hot project to buy in Hollywood. Universal won the bidding war, in large part thanks to a long-standing friendship between Crichton and Steven Spielberg.
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Joseph Mazzello originally auditioned for a role in Spielberg's 1991 hit "Hook," but at seven years old he was told he too young to be cast in the movie. Instead, he wound up in one of the biggest commercial successes of all time: “Steven came up to me after that and said, ‘Don't worry, Joey, I'm going to get you in the movie this summer,’ and then he offered me ‘Jurassic Park,’” Mazzello told ABC in a recent interview. He played the role of Hammond's grandson Tim in the film.
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Although "Jurassic Park" runs for two hours and seven minutes, there are approximately only 15 minutes of dinosaur footage in the entire movie. This technique has been compared to the method used in Spielberg's earlier blockbuster "Jaws," where the creatures' screen time is minimized to enhance their dramatic impact.
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Spielberg directed "Jurassic Park" at the same time that he was in post-production for his Oscar-winning Holocaust period drama "Schindler's List." In a 1993 interview with Entertainment Weekly, he described the challenges of working simultaneously on these two very different films: "I'm sitting here working in a black-and-white medium on a Holocaust story about an unpraised hero, over my head in that kind of sorrow every day. Then I have to kind of shift gears and get on the action-adventure story fast track. That's been hard on all of us – the same editors have cut both movies along with me – so together we've gone through a kind of cinematic and cultural whiplash."
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While Laura Dern was Spielberg's first choice to play Dr. Sadler, future "House of Cards" star Robin Wright was also offered the role, according to author Duncan Shay, who wrote a book about the making of the film. Wright turned it down, clearing the way for Dern to give one of her most famous performances.
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Less than a month into the filming of "Jurassic Park", the cast and crew faced a real-life disaster when Hurricane Iniki hit the island of Kauai on Sept. 11, 1991. They huddled in a bathroom in the hotel, entertaining themselves with a "Victoria's Secret" catalogue and Spielberg's ghost stories. Once the storm passed, they were airlifted out of Hawaii and returned to Los Angeles to finish the shoot.
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The use of computer-generated imagery (CGI) in "Jurassic Park" represented a groundbreaking technological achievement for the film industry. As Spielberg said in a 2013 interview with Entertainment Weekly, "It changed special effects forever, and for better or for worse, it really did introduce the digital era.” The film won three Oscars at the 1994 Academy Awards: Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Visual Effects.
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One of the most famous CGI dinosaurs in the film is a Brachiosaurus, who jumps on his hind legs to reach leaves on the top of a tree. Spielberg revealed in DVD commentary that the move was anatomically impossible for the real dinosaur to do, based on its bone structure found by real-life paleontologists. The CGI team shrank the digital creature's hind legs to allow him to perform the bit of movie magic.
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As the heroes watch the Brachiosaurus, Dr. Malcolm famously says, "He did it. The crazy son of a bitch did it." According to Jeff Goldblum in Blu-Ray commentary, he filmed the line in just one take.
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Goldblum also says he came up with the idea for Malcolm to save the kids by distracting the T-Rex with a flare and letting it chase him. The script originally had Malcolm running away scared, but Goldblum convinced Spielberg that the flare would be more heroic and exciting to watch.
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Obviously, since dinosaurs came before humans, the "JP" team needed to invent what they thought they sounded like. In an interview with Vulture, Oscar-winning sound designer Gary Rydstrom said he used a mix of different animal sounds for each species, including a slowed-down recording of a baby elephant for the T-Rex.
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The CGI team also took artistic liberties with the T-Rex's movements. According to Tom Shone's book "Blockbuster," the paleontologists Spielberg brought as advisers couldn't agree on how the carnivore would move. Ultimately, science was thrown out the window, as the T-Rex moves faster in the film than its skeleton would have actually allowed.
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The first dinosaur scene depicts a sick Triceratops. According to Duncan Shay's book about the making of the film, Stan Winston and his team had to rush to complete the Triceratops puppet after Spielberg put it at the top of the production schedule.
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Winston's Triceratops puppet took eight people to operate. One person operated the eyes by remote control while the others sat in a pit underneath the dinosaur. Each of the limbs were operated by a different puppeteer, with others operating the mouth, tongue and breathing mechanism.
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Spielberg's team included Phil Tippett, a sound effects legend who worked on stop-motion animation for "RoboCop" and the "Star Wars" trilogy. When he learned that many of the dinosaurs would be computer animated, Tippett said he thought his job had "become extinct." Instead, he helped make both the animatronic and CGI dinosaurs' movements feel more lifelike, earning the second Oscar of his career for his work.
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Well after the film came out, Tippett's work also made him an internet meme, thanks to the role he was given in the credits: "Dinosaur Supervisor." Movie fans jokingly blamed Tippett for not supervising the dinosaurs and letting them devour people. When asked about the meme by Mashable, Tippett called it "beyond silly" and "a waste of time."
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One of the most famous product tie-ins on film happens when a corporate rival hatches a plan to steal dinosaur embryos in a can of Barbasol shaving cream. The script didn't specify the brand, but art director John Bell said in an interview for the film's 20th anniversary Blu-Ray release that the can's label design stood out from all the others.
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Ever since then, Barbasol has been using "Jurassic Park" and its sequels to advertise their products. he company announced a tie-in deal in 2015 for the release of "Jurassic World," even though the can didn't return in the sequel itself.
The famous foreboding shots of water rippling from the T-Rex's massive footsteps were inspired by, of all things, the bandEarth Wind & Fire. According to Empire Magazine, Spielberg was listening to the famous R&B group in his car and noticed how the bass from the music created ripples in his coffee, and got the idea to use liquid as a warning of an approaching beast.
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"Jurassic Park" launched an entire franchise at Universal, including a popular ride at Universal Studios. Development on the ride actually began before the movie even started filming, and was based on a combination of Michael Crichton's novel and suggestions from Spielberg, who oversaw creative development of the ride.
Universal Studios
While "Jurassic Park" mania swept the world, famed critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert weren't on board. They gave the film two tentative thumbs up, but also called it a "missed opportunity," saying it didn't hold up to Spielberg's past films, including "Jaws" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."
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Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi blockbuster celebrates silver anniversary
Action adventure film "Jurassic Park" helped define modern blockbuster filmmaking. The Steven Spielberg monster hit, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, debuted in theaters on June 11, 1993 to audience raves. With so many famed actors and groundbreaking effects involved, the film's behind-the-scenes secrets are plentiful. Here are 21 super-interesting facts about the pioneering movie.
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