Breakout and Work

Early work: Lohan began her career with Ford Models at age three and, at a time when blue-eyed blondes were in highest demand, the freckle-faced, auburn-haired child found little work at first. She persisted, and eventually did more than 100 print ads for Toys "R" Us. 

She also modeled for Calvin Klein Kids (usually with siblings Michael and Ali) and Abercrombie Kids. Through young adulthood, Lohan was featured in such diverse magazines as Vogue, Elle, Bliss (UK), Хай Клуб ("High Club", Bulgaria), and Blenda (Japan).

Lohan's first auditions for television did not go well; by the time she tried out for a Duncan Hines commercial, she told her mother that she would give up if she did not get the job. Once hired, the floodgates opened; Lohan has appeared in over 60 commercials, including a Jell-O pudding spot with Bill Cosby. Her ad work led to soap operas, and she was already considered a show-business "veteran" when she spent several months in 1996 and 1997 as Alexandra "Alli" Fowler on Another World, "where she delivered more dialogue than any other 10-year-old in daytime serials" of the time.

Lohan gave up Another World for the big screen when Nancy Meyers cast her as estranged twin sisters who try to reunite their long-divorced parents (Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson) in The Parent Trap (1998). Hired at age 10, Lohan was 11 when filming began in England and California (both in Los Angeles and the Napa Valley). "I left school for eight months," she said. "When I came back, my friends [asked], 'Where'd you go?' I said, 'My family and I went on a long vacation.' Then the movie came out, and they were, like, 'Um, Lindsay? That's you in Parent Trap,' and I said, 'Oh, yeah. I also did this movie while we were gone.'" Trap did well at the box office, bringing in US$92 million worldwide. 

Film critic Janet Maslin said Lohan "plays the dual role with ... so much forcefulness that she seems to have been taking shy violet lessons from Sharon Stone." Kenneth Turan wrote, "Lohan's the soul of this film as much as Hayley Mills was of the original, and ... she is more adept than her predecessor at creating two distinct personalities".

Signed by Disney to a three-film contract, Lohan was offered the role of Penny in Inspector Gadget but, after seven months' work on The Parent Trap, she turned it down. Later, she starred in two original television movies, Life-Size (with Tyra Banks) and Get a Clue. 

She also played Bette Midler's daughter in the first episode of the short-lived series, Bette (2000), but Lohan then 14 quit when the production moved from New York to Los Angeles. In 2001, she hosted the ABC-TV commercial series commemorating Walt Disney's 100th birthday during a rebroadcast of The Parent Trap.

Following a brief hiatus, Lohan auditioned for (and won) the lead teen role in another Disney remake; Freaky Friday (2003) starred Jamie Lee Curtis and Lohan as a mother and daughter who each get trapped in the other's body. Critic Roger Ebert wrote that Lohan "has that Jodie Foster sort of seriousness and intent focus beneath her teenage persona," while Carrie Rickey—who panned the film—called Lohan's performance "unpredictable and inspired." Friday was Lohan's biggest commercial success.

Actor/producer Ashton Kutcher featured Lohan in the second-season finale of Punk'd, his MTV series that played practical jokes on celebrities. Eleven months later, Lohan made a cameo appearance on That '70s Show opposite Kutcher and her then-boyfriend, Wilmer Valderrama.

Breakout role: Lohan was given the lead in two films, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (her first Disney feature that was not a remake) and Paramount's Mean Girls, both released in 2004. Drama Queen was a moderate success at the box office, but a failure with critics; Robert K. Elder wrote, "Though still a promising star, Lohan will have to do a little penance before she's forgiven for Confessions."That "penance" came with Mean Girls, her first PG-13 (and first non-Disney) film. 

Considered her breakout role, the critical and commercial hit grossed over US$86 million (US$129 million worldwide), "cementing her status as the new teen movie queen," wrote Brandon Gray. Steve Rhodes said, "Lohan dazzles us once more ... the smartly written script is a perfect match for her intelligent brand of comedy."

Mean Girls was scripted by Tina Fey and featured several alumni of Saturday Night Live; Lohan was later asked to host the show, in 2004 and again in 2005.

Lohan returned to Disney for Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005), the fifth film in the long-dormant Herbie series. Her rising popularity allowed her to choose from a wider variety of projects and, at age 19, Lohan felt Herbie would help her make the transition into more grown-up roles. "In most of my other films, I was in high school," she said. "Here, [my character is] just out of college. 

It's nice to be able to do something that I think will be acceptable to the fan base I've accumulated from my Disney movies, but subconsciously they'll see me getting older and maturing." Fully Loaded did well at the box office, earning more in international release than in the United States.

Her next film, Just My Luck, arrives in theatres on 12 May 2006; A Prairie Home Companion, an independent film directed by Robert Altman, follows on 9 June 2006 (its North American premiere is set for 10 March 2006 at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas). Lohan completed filming the independent Emilio Estevez film, Bobby, opposite Elijah Wood, in December, 2005; Chapter 27 with Jared Leto began filming in New York on 9 January 2006.

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