Original PARENT TRAP Star Takes a Trip Down Memory Lane
Movieguide® Contributor
The original PARENT TRAP star Hayley Mills is reflecting on her iconic role as sisters Susan Evers and Sharon McKendrick in the 1961 classic.
“I especially loved the fight between me and my twin, played by Susan Henning,” the 78-year-old recalled about her role. “We really loved doing that.”
Henning was brought in so Mills could interact with someone while she performed.
“And I got my comeuppance because I put the cream pie into her face, and then when I switched roles, I got the cream pie in my face. Instant karma, that was. That was the moment I knew what it felt like to be an American teenager,” she said.
The London native did have a bit of a struggle developing an accent for one of the twins she played in the movie.
“A Californian accent was a little easier for me because I was surrounded by it. The Boston accent was somewhat elusive. And I think that shows in the film,” she explained.
“But I was helped by the fact that the twins kept switching places. And they themselves got their accents muddled up, and I got my accent muddled up as well. So we were all in the same boat,” she said.
She remembers her on-screen parents, Brain Keith and Maureen O’Hara, with fondness.
“They were consummate professionals, both of them,” she told TODAY. “And really, really sweet with me. If you work with really good actors, they make you better.”
O’Hara “was wonderful, absolutely wonderful,” Mills said. “I remember I was very in awe of her in the beginning. She was so very real and down to earth.”
“She was very warm and demonstrative and extremely talkative. She never stopped talking and laughing and hugging you. She was a real force of nature,” she continued.
Mills recalled that everyone knew when she arrived because the energy changed.
“And she was so beautiful; I couldn’t take my eyes off of her when I first met her,” she added. “It was all-natural, too. She took her beauty for granted, but I never did because I had never seen anyone so beautiful.”
The movie is one of her favorites that she’s ever been a part of, not just because it was fun to do but because it had an important message about family.
“It’s very high on my list because it’s a good movie, it had a good script and it had wonderful actors,” Mills said. “But it was also about something important. It was about children dealing with divorce, and it came out at a time when more and more families were breaking up.”
“When I went to boarding school, there was this one girl in my class whose parents were divorced, and she was so unhappy about that and she felt ashamed. But she never admitted she was. When the ’60s kicked in, people were getting divorced, and the impact on the children was dreadful,” she said.
When she watched the re-make, she said she felt a sense of “déjà vu.”
“I thought she [Lohan] was very, very good. The split screens were so brilliant. It’s really strange, because so much of the dialogue is the same. They changed the story a little bit, but I did think she was very good,” she said.
Mills recently took up acting again in thriller movie, TRAP, which came out on Aug. 2. In the movie, she plays the role of a profiler whose target is a serial killer named “The Butcher.”
Movieguide®’s -3 review of the movie reads:
TRAP is the latest thriller from suspense master M. Night Shyamalan. Josh Hartnett stars as Cooper, a seemingly nice father. Cooper takes his tween daughter to see her favorite pop singer. Cooper discovers the arena’s swarming with police and FBI agents. They’ve locked the concert down as an elaborate trap to catch a brutal serial killer called “The Butcher.” In fifteen minutes, the movie reveals that Cooper is the serial killer. An intense, often scary, roller coaster ride ensues. Cooper engages in an incredible battle of wits with a swarm of police.
By revealing the killer’s identity early, TRAP turns upside down Shyamalan’s usual formula of waiting until the end to deliver a big twist. This change enables the knife-sharp script to dish out a treasure trove of surprises the rest of the way, especially in the third act. Josh Hartnett delivers a knockout performance in the lead role. TRAP has only a few strong obscenities and profanities. Also, much of the violence is implied and offscreen. However, the scary ending alternates between some nice moral resolutions and a surprisingly dark, disappointing final twist.
