The Lindsay Lohan Lo-Down

July 06, 2008

Lindsay Lohan and I are sitting in the outdoor cafe of a photo studio off Melrose Avenue, on a blazing blue LA afternoon, doing what girls always do - comparing address book covers and talking clothes.

Her favourite designer label? Balenciaga, of course. There’s also Miu Miu, Prada and Donna Karan, and let’s not forget her great friends Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, in whose front row she sat on a whirlwind trip to Milan earlier this year.

“Omigod, they’re such good people to be around,” she says earnestly. “And the way their dresses fit... If I get married, I definitely want them to do the gown.”

This is, in fact, the second time Lohan, 22, and I have met. The first was about 18 months ago, in a smoky, entourage-filled suite at the Sanderson hotel in London, where she was shooting a Miu Miu campaign.

She padded around the room in a baby-doll negligee with bare feet, regaling us – her rapt courtiers – in her droll, breakneck way, about how she had spent the previous night at a bar with Calum Best, how Best had just come out with a really weird aftershave and how Paris Hilton danced to her own records, snapping imperiously at anybody who interrupted her flow.

Today, an 84-minute stint in jail for drink-driving and alleged cocaine possession, and three well-publicised stints in rehab later, she seems a little different.

Less animated, less droll and more demure. Who knows if this is the dawn of a new ‘LiLo’, if she really has, as the huge press machine behind her insists, turned over a new leaf.

Google her and you’ll find stories of the vodka-Red Bull relapses, the mink coat she has been accused of pinching, the thousands of dollars worth of clothing she was supposed to have taken from a friend’s closet and, by the time you read this, who knows what else. But, today, she seems to be on her best behaviour.

And oh, isn’t she fabulously, mesmerisingly pretty, too? A little chunkier than memory recalls, in old, black leggings and flats, but extraordinary, nonetheless, with that old-school hair (a rich russet brown today), those frosted, freckly cheekbones and a slightly feral, slightly trashy allure.

Some things never change – such as the perpetual texting and cigarette smoking, and that low, urgent Valley Girl voice.

She never goes anywhere without her entourage, consisting of an ultra-loyal PA, Jeni; a fragile, bug-eyed boy called Patrick, whom she describes as her stylist; and her personal spray-tanner, Lorit.

If she goes back to London, they’ll all probably have to go, too. “Oh, I love Europe,” Lohan gushes robotically. “I love the culture. It’s so diverse. If I lived in Europe, I’d definitely speak three languages, and I’d definitely want to raise my children there, too.”

Children? “Well, we’re not going to get into that,” she says quickly. “But when I talk with my really close friends, that’s what I always say.”

Lindsay Dee Lohan. What is it about this former child actor, who hasn’t yet quite recaptured the success of 2004’s Mean Girls, that we find so riveting?

What makes her more interesting than, say, Mischa Barton or Kate Bosworth? And why, when there are so many LA girls out there, is it LiLo who teens want to emulate?

There’s the car-crash factor, for one. Who could have failed to watch in appalled fascination as she morphed from adorable child star into who she is now?

Who can fail to reel back in horrified wonder at her Hollywood hardcore parents, Dina and Michael, who enrolled their eldest daughter in Ford Models agency when she was just three years old?

What must it be like to have a dad who spent most of your pre-teens in prison for fraud and who’s now a proselytising born-again Christian?

A dad who just so happens to be photographed by the paparazzi every time he’s with his daughter.

What must it be like having a ‘mumager’ such as Dina, who goes clubbing with Lohan, has been known to introduce herself as her daughter’s PA, and who’s now back at the Lohan residence in Long Island, New Jersey, filming her own reality-television show?

And what of Lohan’s rumoured lesbian relationship with friend and fellow former addict Samantha Ronson, DJ and sister of Grammy Award-winning music producer Mark Ronson?

Let’s not forget one small fact: Lohan can actually act, as anybody who saw her in The Parent Trap, Mean Girls, Freaky Friday or even the widely panned Georgia Rule would surely have to agree.

Finger-waggers will tell you that, at 22, she’s washed-up and, as with so many former child stars, she’ll now take any role she’s offered.

Fans, including Quentin Tarantino (and, up there in heaven, Robert Altman, who cast her in his last film, A Prairie Home Companion), are waiting to see what she does next. Tarantino has said he could “cast Lindsay in almost anything”, but nothing has eventuated as yet.

But then there’s her guest role as America Ferrera’s mean former classmate in six episodes of Ugly Betty, starting at the end of season two.

And filming is underway on Labor Pains, the upcoming romcom directed by Rick Schwartz (of The Departed and The Aviator fame), in which Lohan plays a girl faking pregnancy to avoid being fired.

Wow, come on, how fabulous is that?

“Well, thank you. That’s nice, because that’s what I do – I act,” says Lohan, lowering her furry eyelashes and permitting a gracious smile.

“That’s what I’ve done since I was seven. People seem to lose sight of that. They skim over it. They’re more interested in seeing a picture of me slipping in the rain, which I did last night and someone took a picture.”

Lohan has agreed to be interviewed because of her part in the UK’s Visa Swap (a fashion charity event previously fronted by Mischa Barton).

Lohan has donated an Issa frock, a pair of barely worn Jimmy Choos, a Miu Miu bag and two vintage pieces. “Usually I hate giving away clothes,” she says. “Everything I wear has such personality. But I think this is an amazing idea, so I’m more than willing to give what I can.”

Giving it away and spending responsibly, as Jeni and Patrick keep helpfully reiterating, is all part of the new Lohan.

She’s distinct from the old one, who used to be such a hardcore shopper that many of the clothes in her wardrobe still had price tags attached. It’s all part of the master plan to ‘diversify’, to show the world what a paragon of integrity – and an industry powerhouse – LiLo can be, when sober.

Take the album she’s recording in New York with Universal Motown, the LiLo range of fashion leggings she’s started to market and the scent line she’s “sorta been experimenting with” during meetings with fragrance companies.

Take the plans she has to create her own TV series, which are so top, top secret that she won’t discuss them with anybody – except to say it’s her own project and has absolutely nothing to do with Living Lohan, the show her mother is filming to demonstrate how, using her unique ‘mumaging’ skills, she can turn Lohan’s younger sister, Ali, into a worldwide star, too.

What does Lohan think of her little sister’s foray into the world of celebrity and the potentially dangerous trappings of finding fame so young?

“It’s hard,” says Lohan, fixing me with those feline, hazel eyes. “But people are always going to do what they’re going to do, y’know? Hopefully, Ali has learnt not to do some of the things I did. I wish them both well, I really do, but it’s their thing; I don’t want any part of it. Besides, it takes the attention away from me, which always helps,” she adds.

Shirley MacLaine once accused Lohan of being addicted to the limelight, but you wonder if this is true, or whether she, in fact, feels like a monkey in a cage. Might it be nice, sometimes, to be left alone?

“No,” she says flatly. “I don’t take it like that. I think it’s the glass-half-full thing, the way you perceive things. If you let the bad filter in, you’re going to get some of the bad and have to stomach it. It’s a discipline – not letting that stuff through. It comes with time and age, and being in this industry.”

It’s now 4pm and time for Lohan to leave. She’s not sure what she’ll do later. Maybe have a shower at her home in West Hollywood, then go somewhere private, such as the Beverly Hills Hotel, for tea.

She insists she isn’t dating anybody (which flies in the face of those speculations about Samantha Ronson).

Her best friend now, the one she trusts with her life, who would that be? “Hmm, that’s hard. Jeni’s one of them. Patrick’s another. Yeah, Sam Ronson, too, and my friend Lauryn Flynn (former director of celebrity services at Calvin Klein). Oh, and my mum,” she adds firmly. “I have a great mum and dad. We’re a very close family.”

Before stepping into her chauffeur-driven car, she gives me a big hug.

“Thank you,” she says with a slight air of desperation. “Thank you so much for being nice. You know, people may think I’m this and that, but I’m not a bad person. I’m really not.”

Lohan’s guest appearance on Ugly Betty begins in the season two finale, which will air on the Seven Network.