The actress is starring in the recently released Netflix holiday movie ‘Falling for Christmas,’ marking her first major production in over 10 years
Lindsay Lohan is making her Hollywood comeback.
The 36-year-old actress stars in the recently released Netflix holiday movie “Falling for Christmas,” which marks her first major acting role in over a decade.
A former child star, Lohan was one of Tinseltown’s reigning It girls in the early 2000s before her promising career was derailed by multiple box-office flops and a string of highly-publicized legal problems and substance abuse issues.
“For me, my whole life, acting is like riding a bicycle. It’s just in me,” Lohan told the Hollywood Reporter last month.
Doing films, playing a character, it brings me so much joy to be able to share a story with people. To take people on that journey with me is such a blessing.”
In “Falling for Christmas,” Lohan plays spoiled hotel heiress Sierra Belmont, who is left with amnesia after a skiing accident. She is taken in by kindhearted widower and local lodge owner Jake Russell (“Glee” star Chord Overstreet) and his daughter Avy (Olivia Perez).
In the days leading up to Christmas, Sierra finds herself falling in love with Jake and learning to embrace the simpler things in life.
At a screening for the film Nov. 9, Lohan made her red carpet debut with her husband Bader Shammas. The pair were first romantically linked in February 2020 when they were pictured together at a music festival in Dubai.
Lohan announced she was engaged to the financier in November 2021. She revealed the two had secretly tied the knot when she referred to Shammas as her “husband” in a July Instagram post.
Lohan gushed over her married life with Shammas in a recent interview with “Good Morning America.”
“It’s amazing,” she said. “I’m really lucky. I found my partner, and he’s an amazing man and we’re a great team.”
Lohan hesitated when pressed to share further details about Shammas, but she did add, “He’s the best. I love him so much.”
Since moving to Dubai in 2014, Lohan has opted for a quiet life out of the spotlight, a dramatic departure from the microscope she lived under at the height of her career.
The New York native made her career breakthrough at the age of 12 when she beat out 4,000 other young girls for the roles of twins Hallie Parker and Annie James in the 1998 Disney movie “The Parent Trap.” The movie also starred Dennis Quaid and the late Natasha Richardson.
A box office hit, the film was also met with critical acclaim, with Lohan in particular earning high praise for her performance.
After “The Parent Trap,” Lohan landed leading roles in two major Disney releases, 2003’s “Freaky Friday,” in which she starred opposite Jamie Lee Curtis, who played her mother, and 2004’s “Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen.”
In 2004, Lohan became the youngest person to ever host the MTV Movie Awards and also won a Golden Popcorn for her performance in “Freaky Friday.”
However, it was Lohan’s role as naive transfer student Cady Heron in the hit 2004 comedy “Mean Girls” that made her a household name. Lohan’s performance earned rave reviews from critics, and she was declared one of Hollywood’s brightest rising stars.
“I would watch Lindsay to learn what it is to be a film actor,” “Mean Girls” screenwriter Tina Fey told People magazine.
Later that year, Lohan launched her singing career after scoring a recording deal with Casablanca Records and released her debut album “Speak.”
But with Lohan’s suddenly immense fame came intense media scrutiny. She made headlines over a public, years-long feud with Hilary Duff after she and the “Lizzie McGuire” star were in a love triangle with Aaron Carter in the early 2000s.
On her 18th birthday, Lohan revealed she was dating “That 70s Show” star Wilmer Valderrama, who is seven years her senior. Their romance was heavily covered in gossip magazines until they called it quits after four months of dating.
After moving to LA full-time in 2004, Lohan began to get a reputation for being a party girl. By 2005, Lohan had become a favorite target of the paparazzi, who relentlessly trailed the teen actress as she hopped from club to club and stayed out until the early hours of the morning.
At the same time, Lohan’s career began to falter as her lifestyle appeared to be affecting her work habits and reliability. Production on her 2005 Disney movie “Herbie: Fully Loaded” was shut down for three days when Lohan was hospitalized for “exhaustion”.
The movie became a commercial success but received a lukewarm response from critics. Her next big-screen release, 2006’s “Just My Luck,” was a box-office bomb and earned the actress a Golden Raspberry nomination for worst actress.
That same year, Lohan starred alongside Felicity Huffman and Jane Fonda in the drama “Georgia Rule.” During filming, she was hospitalized for being “overheated and exhausted,” according to her representative.
In a leaked letter, the head of the company producing “Georgia Rule” blasted Lohan over her “various late arrivals and absences from the set.” Morgan Creek CEO James G. Robinson wrote, “We are well aware that your ongoing all night heavy partying is the real reason for your so-called ‘exhaustion.'”
He went on to slam the actress for her “discourteous, irresponsible and unprofessional” actions and threatened to hold her personally responsible for any damages incurred by her behavior, including monetary damages.
Lohan’s partying continued, and she became a tabloid fixture. In one infamous photo, Lohan is seen during a night out with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton though the trio were reportedly feuding with each other at the time. She was also seen passed out in a car in another notorious image.
In January 2007, Lohan entered drug rehab for the first time during production of her movie “I Know Who Killed Me.” In May of that year, she was arrested for misdemeanor D.U.I. She went to rehab for the second time and was fitted with an alcohol-monitoring ankle bracelet.
Two weeks after leaving rehab, Lohan crashed her Mercedes-Benz convertible in Santa Monica, California. She was arrested and charged with D.U.I, cocaine possession and driving on a suspended license.
Lohan pleaded guilty and was sentenced to serve one day in jail, 10 days of community service and three years of probation as well as pay a fine and enter an alcohol education program. She later entered rehab for the third time that year.
In November 2007, Lohan served 87 minutes of her jail sentence due to overcrowding.
“I Know Who Killed Me” was released in July 2007. The horror-thriller failed at the box office and received an overwhelmingly negative response from critics, with some citing it as one of the worst movies of all time. Lohan won two worst actress Golden Raspberry awards for her dual roles in the film, tying with herself for first place.
After a disastrous year, Lohan’s movie and TV offers began to dry up. She guest-starred on the ABC series “Ugly Betty,” but her appearance was cut from six episodes to four after she reportedly feuded with the show’s star America Ferrera.
Lohan played the lead role in the comedy “Labor Pains,” which was slated to premiere in theaters, but it was instead aired as a TV movie on ABC Family.
The troubled starlet remained an ever-present figure on the club scene and on the covers of tabloids. From 2008 to 2009, she was in a high-profile relationship with British DJ Samantha Ronson.
Their tumultuous, on-and-off romance played out in the public eye as they engaged in dramatic fights and took swipes at each other on Twitter.
Meanwhile, Lohan’s legal troubles continued to mount over the next few years as judges found her in violation of her probation four times.
Lohan was sentenced to 90 days in jail and 90 days in rehab during a hearing in which the actress sobbed and pleaded with the judge. Photos from the court appearance later revealed that she had the message “F— U” painted on one of her fingernails.
She allegedly had a physical altercation with a rehab center employee in 2010. Then, in 2011, she was found guilty of misdemeanor theft after pleading no contest to stealing a $2,500 necklace and was sentenced to 120 days in jail, which she served under house confinement due to overcrowding.
By 2012, Lohan had made 20 court appearances, completed six rehab stints and been incarcerated six times. While filming the made-for-TV movie “Liz & Dick” in 2013, she was involved in a car accident that led to additional misdemeanor charges.
Lohan’s legal woes and addiction problems made it difficult for productions to insure her, and she continued to lose projects. Experts predicted it could take ten years for her career to recover.