SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for the ending of “Our Little Secret,” out now on Netflix.
Kristin Chenoweth had to channel her inner mean girl to play Lindsay Lohan’s judgmental mother-in-law in Netflix’s latest holiday rom-com “Our Little Secret.”
To create the saccharine-sweet, “bless your heart” type of Southern mom, Chenoweth drew from comedians like Teri Garr and Carol Burnett (who she says is “like my second mom”), and from people-watching at malls and restaurants. She even took a few cues from some of her own relatives – as for which ones, she’s saying tight-lipped: “I’d like to stay in the family, so I’m gonna be quiet.”
In the film, Lohan and “Pretty Little Liars” alum Ian Harding star as exes who are forced to spend Christmas under the same roof after discovering that their current partners are siblings. Harding says the film stands out amongst other holiday selections due to the unpredictable nature of its plot.
“Sometimes you see in the Christmas movies … it’s clear from the fifth minute that these people are gonna get together,” he says. “I like that, that in some moments it’s like, maybe they’re healing old wounds or they’re kind of coming together, but they could feasibly be friends by the end of it.”
Thankfully, things work out for the estranged couple, who find their way back together at the film’s end. “It felt nice, because it felt for the characters, it’s what’s right,” Lohan says. They should be together! They just had to go on their own journeys and find themselves in their own ways in order to realize what was meant to be. They both had to mature in different ways.”
Kristin Chenoweth, left, Lindsay Lohan and Ian Harding at the “Our Little Secret” New York Special Screening.
Getty Images for Netflix
Audiences get clued in to the less mature versions of Lohan and Harding’s characters in the film’s opening, which takes place ten years in the past (when they were still a couple). To prep for the scene, Harding and Lohan blasted their favorite hits from the early 2010s in the car – after Harding realized when a decade ago actually was.
“Maybe this is also what happens when you get to the stage of your 30s, like me, where I’m like, ‘Oh, 10 years ago. So what music was that?’” Harding quips. “And then I realized, I’m thinking of 20 years ago. I think I’m a lot younger than I am.”
The film was a blast from the past in more ways than one for Lohan, who’s flanked by “Mean Girls” co-star Lacey Chabert and “Freaky Friday” love interest Chad Michael Murray in this year’s Netflix Christmas lineup (Chabert leads “Hot Frosty,” while Murray stars in “The Merry Gentlemen”).
Lohan says she can’t wait for fans to see Murray in “Freakier Friday,” set to hit theaters in August. “It’s exciting. Chad comes into the movie full force, as Jake does, in ‘Freakier Friday’ on the motorcycle. It’s just a really fun movie. I feel like people are gonna laugh a lot. Along with a lot of heart, there’s other stories in it to tell. I’m really excited to share it with everyone.”
Lohan adds that she and Jamie Lee Curtis have had “such a blast” sharing the screen again – but that’s not always a good thing, she says with a laugh. “We’re trouble when we work together. We just talk all the time. Constantly talking and yapping. There’s music in the car and she’s playing Chappell Roan. They’re like, ‘We’re trying to shoot here!’”
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