It's a blue-skied day in New York City, and the crew for Lindsay Lohan's forthcoming film, Just My Luck, is busy setting up a shot in Tribeca. It calls for Lohan to walk down the street, scratch off a lottery ticket and jump for joy when she realises she's won.
About 7m away, a swarm of paparazzi scurry around, aiming their cameras at Hollywood's new teen queen. They know their civil rights (this is public property, as they keep pointing out to the police who are trying to hold them back), and will not be dissuaded from getting their shot. Her every move sends them scrambling. Lohan hardly seems to notice.
"It's all so silly," shrugs the star of Herbie: Fully Loaded when we finally get a few minutes in her trailer. "In a way I think it's cool that people want to know about me. But in another, it's weird because they don't get the full story ... "
Indeed, when you hear this tiny, gorgeous 19-year-old's version of her turbulent life, you might conclude that she's the world's most misunderstood teenager.
First, consider this: US scandal rags report almost daily that Lohan and her posse were out dancing on tables at this or that club, knocking back vodka cocktails and causing mayhem until all hours. But Lohan insists that she's bored with going out, and what she likes most these days is hanging out with her friends.
"It's just so much easier when I don't have to duck the photographers and answer questions," she says in her raspy voice. And when she was going out, she adds, she only drank Red Bull and never, "not once", did she dance on a table. ("Okay," she admits with a laugh, "maybe a stool ... ")
And this: while Lohan's father Michael languishes in jail, serving out a four-year sentence for offences including assault and drink driving, Lohan has asked everyone around her not to tell her what he's been saying to the press.
Despite the fact that he has implied his daughter and her mother, Dina, are unstable. Despite the fact that he has pitched a reality show about his family (who have a restraining order against him). Despite the fact that he is suing his own daughter for a share of her earnings.
When she told a reporter that, "scout's honour", she doesn't do drugs, she added: "I've never tried cocaine. I've seen my father, I've seen how it messes with families and screws your life up."
And this: last year she split up with the film actor Wilmer Valderrama, blaming his "constant flirting". Yet the tabloids say she was seen recently sneaking into Valderrama's hotel room. Lohan rolls her eyes and insists that their relationship is "so over".
And this: every day there is talk about how thin - possibly anorexic - Lohan is. There's even a website, feedlindsay.com, on which more than 2000 fans have urged the actress to put on some pounds. But any time the catering people come by, offering biscuits or food, she grabs some and munches with gusto.
And, finally, this: while gossips try to paint her as an out-of-control diva whose behaviour has wreaked havoc on film sets, directors seem to adore her and believe in her. Herbie: Fully Loaded director Angela Robinson called Lohan "a genius" and said that she effortlessly slipped in and out of character.
And if she was so much trouble, why would Robert Altman have tapped her to play a lead role in the upcoming A Prairie Home Companion?
"All those stories," she says, "they're not the truth. It's not like I'm so interesting anyway. I mean, really, I'm just like any other teenager."
When she sees my eyes roll, she laughs. "Okay, maybe not. But it's not as if I'm married and I'm cheating on my husband. It's not like I'm robbing people or being a bitch. I get really hurt when I read those stories. Because I have to admit that I want people to like me. I want them to know that I'm not that horrible, selfish, out-of-control person they keep reading about.
"I work hard, then I chill with my friends. I lead a fairly normal life." Lohan takes a breath and then continues. "That's why I hate all the lies that are printed in the magazines, because then the people that I aspire to work with, the directors and actors, think that I'll bring that to the set, that that public persona is me. And it is so not."
She stops and looks around her trailer. "Isn't this place great?" she says, pointing out the flat-screen television, the fully stocked kitchen. One would imagine that Lohan would be used to these things by now.
After all, she's been a public figure since the age of three, when, propelled by her ambitious parents, she became the first red-headed child model signed by the powerful Ford modelling agency (she adopted the blonde look only recently).
She appeared in dozens of TV commercials, and then, aged 11, her first film, the remake of The Parent Trap, in which she played identical twins. A lead role in another remake followed, as she morphed seamlessly from Jamie Lee Curtis' rock'n'roll-loving daughter into the serious mother in Freaky Friday.
It was last year's Mean Girls, though, in which she plays a high-school ingenue who falls in with a bad lot, which cemented her acting credentials and launched her into the Hollywood stratosphere.
But despite her precocity, Lohan says she still nurses many as-yet unfulfilled actorly ambitions, reeling off a list of actors she'd like to work with: Jack Nicholson, Mel Gibson, Johnny Depp ("I'm fascinated by him. He just seems so magical"). She has also talked often about her adoration of the Swedish-born singer and actress Ann-Margret.
"I have always wanted to be a triple threat. That's why I work on my music [Lohan's debut album Speak was released last year]. I see myself doing roles that are comedic but also have singing and dancing. I mean, sure, I'd love to do more grown-up stuff ... but I know that it's young girls who are watching my films and I don't want to turn my back on them.
"Just My Luck [out in December] is a romantic comedy, and I think they'll like it a lot. I kiss a guy, but it's sweet, not really sexy and over-the-top. Maybe my fans aren't ready for more hardcore stuff, or maybe I'm not ... I mean, you won't see me taking my clothes off for a film."
At the age of 19, though, the native New Yorker frequently steps out on to the red carpet with next to nothing on.
Is she so confident she can resist the inevitable pressure to shed the last vestiges of modesty?
"Well," she counters, unphased, "you don't see Julia Roberts going naked or going against her natural beauty. She never has. And look what a great body of work she has. No pun intended. The people I've always admired, like Jodie Foster and Julia Roberts, have not had to compromise themselves. Some day I'd like someone to say that about me."
When Lohan is called to the set again, the photographers all jockey for position. Instead of running and ducking, she turns to them and smiles, then goes over to talk to the director. "If you don't give them something," she says knowingly, "they just get crazy and aggressive. And that's when I get scared."
She learnt just how crazy and aggressive the press pack could get earlier this year, when her car was rammed by a paparazzo in a minivan. The photographer was subsequently charged with assault with a deadly weapon, while Lohan was, understandably, shaken.
Such incidents serve as a reminder that she is still just a teenager, with all the vulnerability that implies. And this is reinforced by her behaviour on set: whenever she has a break, she makes a beeline for a gaggle of comfortably familiar women: her mother Dina, a former cabaret dancer; her best friend, Kendra, who is working on the electronic press kit for this film; the hair and make-up ladies; and her publicists.
They gossip about each other, people on the set, and stories they've read in the papers. But there's something good-natured about it. When my starstruck 16-year-old goddaughter Molly shows up on the set, Lohan could not be sweeter. "I love your necklace," she tells her. Kendra comes over, and the three of them are off and running about jewellery, make-up, clothing. It's easy to believe Lohan when she says that she feels like a normal teenager.
It's all a long way from the hard-partying image that she shares with her socialite friends such as Nicole Richie, Kimberly Stewart, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and, most particularly, the hotel heiress Paris Hilton.
"People just don't know her," she protests.
Later, during a break, Kendra, Molly, Lohan and I huddle together in an alcove inside the building where they're shooting.
I whisper a question to her about another film she is about to start work on, A Prairie Home Companion, in which she stars with Meryl Streep. She replies at full volume - so used to being the centre of attention that she can tune out the world when a camera or microphone is in her face. "That is going to be so cool," she gushes. "I'm a big fan of Meryl Streep. I mean, come on, she's so terrific and I have so much to learn from her. Believe me, I'm going to be watching her like a hawk. Just to see how she prepares and everything."
Has she ever been to acting classes?
Lohan wrinkles her nose. "No, I haven't. I'd consider it if there was something about a character I needed to research. It's not really been suggested to me. I like to do things organically, just read the script and think of what that character would do in any situation. I think that classes might not be good for me."
It's certainly true that a lack of formal training hasn't held her back. Making Herbie: Fully Loaded, she says, was great fun, especially "working with Michael Keaton and Matt Dillon. They were very cool. I play a 20-year-old in that film and I have a love interest and it's a very sweet, cute thing."
But despite such platitudes, Lohan says she wants to be known for being more than just sweet and cute. She has a secret ambition: "I want to go to Egypt and Japan and open orphanages in different countries," she says. "I want to have a chain of them ... " I start laughing. I picture people lining up to buy a Lindsay Lohan Orphanage franchise. But Lohan is dead serious. "There are kids around the world who have nothing. And I have so much. I want to be able to give back."
Who knows? Perhaps she'll do just that - whether it's cutey-pie actress, hard-partying diva, or down-to earth teenager, Lindsay Lohan seems to be able to take on whatever role she puts that pretty little head to.
Lowdown
Who: Lindsay Lohan
Born: July 2, 1986, New York
Key roles: The Parent Trap (1998), Freaky Friday (2003), Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004), Mean Girls (2004), Speak (debut album, 2004)
Latest: Starring in Herbie: Fully Loaded screening now
- INDEPENDENT
Lohan little miss ordinary
It's a blue-skied day in New York City, and the crew for Lindsay Lohan's forthcoming film, Just My Luck, is busy setting up a shot in Tribeca. It calls for Lohan to walk down the street, scratch off a lottery ticket and jump for joy when she realises she's won.
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