12 things you probably didn't know about 'The Parent Trap' (2024)

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Multiple other young actresses were considered for the roles of Hallie and Annie, including Scarlett Johansson.

Before Lindsay Lohan was cast in "The Parent Trap," Scarlett Johansson, Michelle Trachtenberg, and Mara Wilson were all considered for the role. "Contact" actress Jena Malone was even offered the part, but she turned it down three times.

Lohan was a relatively unknown young actress at the time but said she really connected to both roles.

"My parents were kind of separating at the time when this was all going on. And it made it a lot easier for me to play these characters that were figuring it out," she told People Magazine in 2020.

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Each scene featuring both twins was filmed twice, with Lindsay Lohan playing either Hallie or Annie opposite a stand-in actress.

The scenes were then edited together to make the combined scene appear seamless to viewers. Editors also made use of background elements in the shot, like a doorframe, to hide the seam between the two shots.

Lohan also wore an earpiece to hear the dialogue she recorded as the other twin in order to make the timing of all her lines perfect, according to The Independent.

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Hallie and Annie are named after director Nancy Meyers and producer Charles Shyer's children.

Meyers and Shyer divorced in 1999, the year after "The Parent Trap" was released, and divorced later that year.

Hallie Meyers-Shyer went on to become an actress and the writer of the Reese Whitherspoon flick "Home Again." Annie Meyers-Shyer has shied away from the spotlight.

Hallie and Annie Meyers-Shyer also have small parts in the movie.

Hallie Meyers-Shyer plays a young camper aptly named Lindsay, while Annie Meyers-Shyer plays a towel girl who makes a brief cameo after Dennis Quaid's character falls into a hotel pool.

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Lindsay Lohan's brother Michael also has a cameo in the movie as a young boy who gets accidentally sent to the all-girls camp.

You can also spot Lohan's mother and siblings walking in the background when Martin picks Annie up from Heathrow Airport.

Chessy is also named after a friend of Nancy Meyers.

The real-life Chessy is a decorator, which makes sense given that director Nancy Meyers is famous for the cozy interiors featured in most of her movies.

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Simon Kunz, who played Martin, originally auditioned for a much smaller role.

According to Buzzfeed, Kunz originally auditioned to play the photographer in the bridal studio, which only had one line. However, after auditioning, Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer thought he would be a better fit in the role of Martin the butler.

Kunz went on to become a prolific actor, with roles in "The Last Kingdom," "Coronation Street," and many more.

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Kunz and Lohan came up with Annie and Martin's signature handshake themselves in a span of a few hours.

The signature handshake becomes an important part of Annie teaching Hallie how to be her and has become one of the most recognizable scenes from the movie. Rather than hiring a choreographer to come up with a handshake, Lohan and Kunz came up with the routine on their own.

"The first time [Lindsay and I] met up, we worked on the handshake idea, about what it could be," Kunz told Bustle in 2018. "I think I'd done something in the audition, just mucking about without Lindsay there, just doing silly moves. They liked a few of those, and so we basically spent an afternoon, two or three hours really, just working out that routine."

"If you ask me right now [to do it], I'd know one or two bits there, but I tell you what, it would only take me 20 minutes and then I'd have it absolutely down pat," he continued.

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The scene when Chessy realizes Hallie is actually Annie took 73 takes and multiple days of shooting to get right.

Lisa Ann Walter, who plays Chessy, later told Bustle about the lengthy experience of doing the scene, which took a couple of days to get right, and how it made her question her acting abilities.

"About halfway through all those takes, people were giving me different directions and Charles [Shyer] started to have other ideas and started to ask Nancy [Meyers] to ask me to do different things," she said. "I started to question what I was doing and thought, 'Oh, my god. I'm [messing] this up. Maybe I'm doing the wrong thing and maybe I suck, maybe I'm a terrible actress, maybe I'm just awful.'"

Walter said that when she took a break from doing the scene, Dennis Quaid "put his hands down on either side of me."

"He put his forehead against mine, and he said, 'I think the work you're doing is magnificent,'" she said. "And I burst into tears. It's just little things like that — it's how many years later, and I'll never forget how that made me feel."

The wine that Hallie and Annie's parents drank on their wedding night is a real wine brand.

In the movie, Nick Parker claims that he bought "every bottle ever made." However, fans of the movie can actually buy the "Where Dreams Have No End" chardonnay, which runs for about $68 a bottle.

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Natasha Richardson's son rewatched "The Parent Trap" because her character Elizabeth James reminds him of his late mother.

Natasha Richardsontragicallydied at the age of 45 following a skiing accident in Canada, leaving behind her husband Liam Neeson and their two sons Daniel Neeson and Micheál Richardson, who took his mother's last name in 2019 to honor her.

Micheál Richardson recently told People that he often revisits "The Parent Trap" to remind him of his mother.

"I just see her so much as that person," he revealed. "I'm so lucky too, because she's passed away, I can still watch her and see how she worked and also it's a great thing to have."

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There are quite a few Easter eggs sprinkled throughout the movie that pay homage to the original "Parent Trap."

Joanna Barnes, who played the evil girlfriend Vicky Robinson in the original "Parent Trap," returned as Meredith Blake's mother Vicki Blake.

In another scene, Hallie can be heard singing the song "Let's Get Together" before she meets Meredith for the first time. The song was originally performed by the twins in the 1961 version.