More than 20 years after its release, Freaky Friday has become a cult classic — but the movie’s final cut came a long way from its first draft.
Director Mark Waters and screenwriter Heather Hach have both reflected on the original vision for the 2003 Disney movie starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan as a mother-daughter duo who never quite see eye to eye — until a magic fortune cookie makes them swap bodies.
“The original script was about a girl who wrote for the school newspaper and wanted to get an interview with Gwen Stefani, who was playing at the House of Blues,” Waters recalled during a 2023 interview with Teen Vogue. “When I went in to meet at Disney, it was one of those interviews where I was prepared to not get the movie because I didn’t like the script.”
He continued, “I was very up-front about it. I said, ‘If you’re going to go to the House of Blues, you might as well have her be in a rock band.’ I pitched this whole thing out. I expected them to say, ‘Get out of here.’ And they did. But then they called and said apparently they liked my version of the movie better.”
Together, Waters and Hach “refashioned” the story of Freaky Friday. Hach joked that the initial idea to include Stefani, now 54, was slightly “selfish” on her end.
“In the first draft I wrote, Anna was a skateboarder, which didn’t really work. I had one draft where she was just obsessed with Gwen Stefani,” she told Teen Vogue. “I’m obsessed with Gwen … I wanted to meet Gwen Stefani and find out her skincare secrets. Ultimately, that didn’t happen.”
Eventually, the team moved forward with the story fans now know and love — Anna’s band, Pink Slip, has a chance to perform at the iconic venue on the same night as her mom’s rehearsal dinner — and everything else “fell into place.”
“It really gave life and personality and distinction. And it was much easier for me to write,” Hach recalled. “I love music. I love anything to do with music and it was just a great way into their worlds, the conflict between mother and daughter. I related to that a lot more than I did the skateboarder.”
While she may not have had an actual cameo, Stefani’s music still had an influence on Pink Slip’s performance. Waters also cited Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney as inspirations.
“Having not just a female lead singer but a female lead guitarist, which you didn’t see that often, it was almost a little bit of a fantasy element that we made reality, and people dug it,” he said.
Hach said the image of Lohan, now 38, on stage with costars Christina Vidal and Haley Hudson felt “ahead of its time” when Freaky Friday was released. Vidal, meanwhile, said Pink Slip “felt like a real band.”
“I don’t remember thinking, ‘Wow, how cool that we’re an all-girl band,'” she said in 2023. “I just remember thinking how cool that we’re a real rock band. We got to be real rock stars.”
Freaky Friday also starred Mark Harmon, Chad Michael Murray, Lucille Soong, Stephen Tobolowsky and Rosalind Chao, all of whom are expected to return for the upcoming sequel. Disney officially confirmed the second film in March, and the first photos of Lohan and Curtis on set were released three months later.
Vidal and Hudson are set to reprise their roles, leaving fans wondering about the future of Pink Slip.
“I think they became a famous band,” Vidal told Teen Vogue, sharing her own theories. “I think that Lindsay’s character went solo. I think my character ended up getting married, having a family and opening a school of rock for young girls. I think Haley’s character went on to be a famous guitarist, to play with huge rock bands. I don’t know what the guys did.”
