At 28, Elaine Hendrix Relished Playing The Villain

In 1998, Elaine Hendrix played arguably the most hated woman in film, The Parent Trap’s Meredith Blake — a stunning publicist who posed the only true threat to identical twins Hallie and Annie Parker (Lindsay Lohan)’s scheme to reunite their parents. And while millennials have re-evaluated Hendrix’s character in recent years, the actor says she always loved being the villain.

“I’ve played many villains in my life,” she says. “I think it’s the eyebrows and blonde hair, and I just give the attitude. To me, that’s the juicy role. Look at all I got to do in The Parent Trap. I got to have a lizard on me and be shoved into the water in a raft. In a scene that got cut, I had to click the [camping] sticks and fall down.”

Hendrix, 54, turned 28 in 1998, just a couple months after The Parent Trap hit theaters. She looks back fondly on the friendships she forged during that time, including that with co-star Lisa Ann Walter. “We have held hands, had each other’s back, shared tears, shared celebrations,” she tells Bustle over Zoom from Los Angeles. It’s a bond that’s persevered through the years: The actor, who lives in Atlanta, is calling from Walter’s home, where she’s staying while in town for press and filming obligations.

The Parent Trap was only one of many beloved ’90s classics, including Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion and Superstar, that Hendrix starred in at the time, and contending with sudden fame and success wasn’t always easy. “I had never experienced anything like that,” she says. “I didn’t know how to handle it and I didn’t know what was going on. It was a real adjustment for me. Some of it I came to understand and some of it I just didn’t.”

Nearly three decades later, Hendrix has the 20/20 hindsight to revisit that period in unexpected ways. She appears in Freakier Friday, the sequel to Lohan’s 2003 classic Freaky Friday, which hit theaters on the same day as our interview. “It was surreal but it was also a love fest,” she says of her reunion with Lohan. “There’s a familiarity that we have. But now we’re both grown up, so we can relate on a slightly different level now, which makes it deeper and richer of an experience.”

She’s also a producer of Ginger Twinsies, an off-Broadway stage parody of The Parent Trap, which is playing at New York’s Orpheum Theatre through Oct. 25. “I saw it when it was literally just on a black box stage, and they were holding their scripts with music stands,” she says. “Even then I laughed out loud so many times, from beginning to end.”

The idea came from writer-director Kevin Zak, who challenges Meredith Blake’s reputation as the film’s villain within the play, even telling Hendrix that he thinks of Ginger Twinsies as Meredith’s Wicked. “I think he’s joking, but he would tell you he’s dead serious,” she says.

Below, Hendrix revisits her “epic” life at 28 and opens up about her closest celebrity friends, hangout spots, and favorite Parent Trap memories.

Who were your support system and closest friends during this time?

I met Lisa Ann Walter when I did Parent Trap, and she was definitely someone [who got me] through that. Then my parents, especially my mom, were so supportive of me. She told me when I first started in the industry, “Burn all the bridges. Don’t have a backup. You can always go back to school, you can always get a job. Really go for it.” And I did. She came to all of my premieres with me.

Do you have any Parent Trap memories with the great Natasha Richardson?

Two always stick with me. If anybody mentioned Liam [Neeson] and her kids, she literally would swoon. The love just radiated off her. And then, she wrote me a note and called me a worthy adversary as a wrap gift, complimenting me on my work. I really took that to heart. That was very, very special.

Talk me through a typical Friday night when you were 28.

That’s so funny. Yesterday, somebody asked, “Were you going to the clubs?” I was like, “Of course... I was in my 20s living in Los Angeles.” I was down in Boystown, going to Rage and Revolver. So many of the clubs are gone now. I was really close friends with Christina Applegate. We were going to the Viper Room, Rainbow Room, Whiskey a Go-Go, always palling around together.

What was your dream role at 28?

I was actually doing Romy and Michele's High School Reunion when they offered me the original Sonya Blade in Mortal Kombat, but I was on a TV series, so that conflicted. Then I was on another show and doing a movie, so I couldn’t do the sequel. At 20, I was like, “Oh, I want to do some sexy action film,” and I still do because I haven’t gotten to yet.

Do you remember what pop culture you were consuming at 28?

When you’re in the industry, you don’t get to consume a lot, especially back then. I don’t mean to sound like an old person, but we didn’t have streaming. You either watched as it was happening or you missed it. And I was out in the world. I would watch old movies with Myrna Loy, Claudette Colbert, Katharine Hepburn, and Bette Davis, because I wanted my trajectory to be like theirs.

What were you wearing at the time, or your favorite trend?

OK, I don’t know who wants to go back to the ’90s. I hear people do, and it’s like, “Why?” To me, as far as fashion, it was a wasteland. My God, what are we doing? Flannel? Big perms that were left over from the ’80s? I guess mom jeans were big then, and then just big scrunchies.

How did you approach relationships at 28? What were your thoughts on love?

I did think I was going to meet someone and be with them forever, but I knew that I did not want to have kids or get married. Sometimes I’m like, “Would a kid be nice now that I’m getting older?” But I have so much freedom. I’ll just pay somebody to take care of me. It’s fine. But I was a little more boy crazy back then. I wanted to be with someone, whereas now I’m like, “Please don’t touch me.”

What would you tell your 28-year-old self now?

I just had so much going on that I was figuring out. That’s the only thing that I wish I could go back and talk to my younger self about — how to navigate Hollywood, how to understand what was happening. While I had a lot of support, I didn’t have a mentor so I learned a lot the hard way.

If you could be that mentor to somebody else, what advice would you give them?

I was driven by so much frenetic energy. Some of it was pure, because I loved what I was doing, but some of it was really scary. Just know that you’re going to be more scared than you realize. When you’re 28, you’re still wanting to be tough, like, “I got it figured out, and I know what I’m doing.” No, you don’t. And that’s OK. Focus more on happiness and being in the moment, really enjoying it instead of clamoring for what’s next.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.