When Lisa Ann Walter and Elaine Hendrix sat side-by-side within the waiting room for his or her Parent Trap screen tests in 1997, they couldn’t have predicted what would occur next.
The film — a remake of the 1961 sister-swap classic, starring a promising child actor named Lindsay Lohan — was a box office stunner with multigenerational cultural impact. But more essential, it brought together two individuals who seemed predestined to be friends. Ever since, they’ve been there to choose one another up once they’re down and root one another on once they’re up.
Most recently (and iconically), Abbott Elementary star Walter, 62, joined Dancing With the Stars contestant Hendrix, 55, and her pro partner, Alan Bersten, for a foxtrot à trois in October. “One in all the things that is basically gratifying about our longterm relationship is people responding to it,” says Walter. “This will not be recent. We didn’t invent grown-ass female friendship. It’s mandatory.” The 2 talked to Us Weekly about being one another’s person.
How do you two define your bond?
Elaine Hendrix Sisters.
Lisa Ann Walter Soulmates.
EH Married without the romance.
LAW [Laughing] So like a long-term married couple…
EH A best friend who will assist you move a body.
When did you realize there was a connection?
EH I feel from the start. We just got together and talked, talked, talked…
LAW Elaine and I are each actors, so we access our emotions easily… We even have a rule that neither one among us can lose our s**t at the identical time. Can you suspect that? We trade off on who’s falling apart. Was there a selected moment that cemented your friendship?
LAW We wrote a script together early on in our relationship. We were close, but once we got done writing that script, we were one. It was a woman buddy movie once they weren’t doing those. We were very much before the entire Bridesmaids.
EH That was, like, right after Parent Trap. As a matter of fact, if anybody desires to fund it…
Elaine Hendrix and Lisa Ann Walter’s Parent Trap characters may not have been on the identical page, however the pair’s real-life friendship has stood the test of time. Hendrix and Walter connected while filming 1998’s The Parent Trap. Walter played Chessy, nanny to Hallie (Lindsay Lohan), while Hendrix portrayed Meredith, the girlfriend of Haillie’s father […]
I hate to go dark, but my next query is…
LAW What happens when one among you dies? I haven’t considered it. She’s so much younger than me…
EH I used to be gonna say, within the natural order of things, Lisa is gonna go first.
LAW Oh my god, I’m going to cry. Thanks so much.
EH You’ve 4 kids, so…
LAW I do, but I actually think you have to be my… what do they call that?
EH The tiebreaker?
Next of kin?
LAW No, not next of kin. No, when you could have the legal…
EH Power of attorney?
LAW Power of attorney. I feel that must be you. Everybody else could be like, “How much is in the desire?” You wouldn’t do this.
EH In fact, she’s my emergency contact on, like, all my medical stuff…
LAW You’ve got to speak in regards to the stuff that matters to you. Not only, “What’s going to occur to my stuff?” but like, “Do you must be cremated or not cremated?”
EH What do I would like to be?
LAW Cremated.
EH Or…
LAW Buried next to a tree together with your dogs?
EH Well, in a tree, but yes. They bury people in trees, like within the roots.
LAW I’m glad that we’re doing this interview in order that we could cement this. I just need to be cremated and separated out a little bit bit, and a few of it may very well be on the counter, like within the kitchen, where I keep my mom. After which some must be at your home. But I don’t want it scattered. Don’t scatter my rattling ashes.
EH I’m not scattering them, you’re coming with me!
Are there moments that stand out if you’ve been one another’s rock?
LAW When Elaine’s mom passed. She called me and was brokenhearted, as I used to be once I lost my mom just a few years ago. I feel families will be difficult when any individual really close passes. Elaine called me in order that I could tell her, “You’re not alone.”
EH It meant all the pieces. I say that equally about losing my mom as I do about having her at Dancing With the Stars and as her helping me move seven times.
LAW The individual that you realize won’t ever, ever allow you to down. That’s one among the things that actually got here out during Dancing: We each have had people who we’ve loved in our lives, you realize, male partners, and never saying it’ll never occur again, but I don’t ever must worry that she’ll fall out of affection with me. I don’t ever must worry that she’ll leave me. She might get mad, but I’m not going to lose her.
Some other ways through which you’ve stepped in and helped one another?
LAW I even have 4 kids, they usually’re wonderful. We had a time back when one was having a very rough time, and emotionally, he had a situation together with his dad and wasn’t seeing him anymore. I needed to be Mom and Dad, and it was tough. One time he was going off on me, and Elaine snapped him like a bug. She grabbed him. She was like, “That’s enough.” Being a single mom’s tough, and sometimes the explanation why is because when there isn’t a second person in the home to say, “Don’t talk over with your mother like that,” the children feel like they’ll get away with it. In that moment, I just needed someone to try this.
EH I’m more of, like, Auntie. I’ve known the children since they were little. So it was more about supporting her than getting involved with the children.
Greater than three a long time after Hayley Mills wooed fans in 1961’s The Parent Trap, Disney rebooted the classic and produced an equally as big box office hit. The 1998 film, which starred Lindsay Lohan as an identical twins, Annie James and Hallie Parker, followed the sisters after they’re reunited while attending the identical Camp Walden […]
Elaine, are you able to share a moment where Lisa’s really shown up for you?
EH I’ve been within the hospital twice, and each times it was, “Have you ever called Lisa? Where’s Lisa?” The primary, my appendix burst. I used to be within the hospital for eight days, and he or she was the one who got here and made sure my room was OK and that my flowers were arranged, got me ice cream, had blankets, walked up and down the hallway with me once I needed to do exercises. Then once I [injured my ribs during] Dancing With the Stars, there was just one person allowed back within the emergency room, so it was Lisa who was there with me.
Have there been times if you’ve helped one another with an acting gig?
LAW On this business, [it’s important] to have a person who doesn’t want anything from you. Elaine coached me [for Abbott Elementary, Wednesdays, 8:30 p.m. on ABC] after which read with me on tape. So once they saw my audition and decided instantly that’s the one, it’s her voice reading with me, because this was throughout the pandemic.
How do you help one another navigate an industry that isn’t all the time kind to women over 40?
LAW The business is hard on women as they age… It doesn’t represent who we’re. Men do many of the writing and directing, so in the event that they center themselves and their experience, and we’re the wife of, the boss of, the sex object of, so even writing what our dynamic is, our friendships, they don’t know. That’s why so many shows involve women fighting one another over a person or over clout or whatever they do on Housewives because they don’t get that these friendships can exist without us competing or being jealous. I’ve had beautiful girlfriends my whole life. I never once was jealous of them being tall or gorgeous, like this one. I rejoice it.
EH Ageism, sexism, racism, it’s very real. I feel incredibly fortunate that we’re on the stages of our lives that we’re and we’re still in the sport, working, thriving. I don’t take that without any consideration, because that’s not something you may plan for — it’s something you hope for. It’s something that you simply work your ass off for, but you may’t plan for it. And so the indisputable fact that we’re here, we’re doing this, and at the extent that we’re. Let’s go! Doing Dancing With the Stars was so essential because, yes, I used to be doing it for myself, but I used to be also doing it for everybody else, to go, Hey, it’s not too late. Please don’t let a number stand in your way. It’s so essential, since the moment you suspect that for yourself, you may make it occur.
And Lisa, you could have your first standup special coming in 2026 on Hulu!
LAW Most individuals don’t know I got here up doing standup. So I desired to do a special where I went back to my roots, which is a club in a city that has embraced me as one among their very own, Philadelphia, and do a special that was a present back to the audience. I still have plenty of fans which can be, like, “I saw you in Rochester,” “I [saw] you in Boston 10 times.” In order that’s why I desired to do it.
Elaine Hendrix has struck a chord with the Dancing With the Stars audience. The actress, who first gained some recognition within the ‘90s for guest appearances on TV shows like Ellen and Married… with Children, earned her breakout role as Meredith Blake in Nancy Meyers’ 1998 remake of The Parent Trap. Since then, she’s starred […]
Do you give one another dating advice?
EH On a regular basis.
LAW There have been years when she first moved to Latest York after which Atlanta, I might get a slew of… because look, when she puts her picture on the market, she’s gonna get a response.
EH Same, so once we were in the identical town, we’d be, like, laying in bed or whatever. “OK, what about this one?” Yeah, no. Swipe right. She’s higher about it. But I immediately am, like, able to talk myself out of virtually each man passing through.
LAW And I’m about 50 percent of that.
EH I feel that’s being generous. We might decipher all of the code that was within the creepy, like, what was of their bios and stuff. So then finally, though, we just gave that up because apps are, like, [sighs].
LAW I dated plenty of the fellows on the apps.
Would you ever date a man the opposite didn’t like?
LAW Apparently, all the people who I’ve dated.
EH You simply grin and bear it and wait for it to be over. And it’s not that I didn’t like them. One in all them I liked, I just didn’t think… he was best for you.
LAW The young one?
EH The young one. My whole long thing about dating is that, unless it’s going to occur the old-fashioned way, like a meet-cute somewhere…
LAW You smell them.
EH Yeah, it’s not gonna occur because nobody has anyone to introduce you to, and I’m not doing apps. So then, like, what else is there?
LAW I all the time assume they simply won’t surrender their eligible male friends because… every guy wants a woman, a minimum of on this town, that’s 10 to fifteen years younger, after which I all the time feel like I’m 20 kilos and years over what they’re selling. I said one time to a lesbian friend of mine, “Really, man, I might love up to now a girl, but I actually, really like penis.” And she or he said, I got a box for that under my bed… Imagine how great a pair [Elaine and I] could be.
EH Oh, God, but no offense, then I’d must kiss you.
LAW Do you realize how many individuals need to kiss these lips? God gave them to me. I didn’t buy these.
EH I do know. Have at it. I’m not standing in the way in which in any respect. Please go for it.
Lisa, you mentioned a rough split together with your second husband. How did Elaine support you thru that?
EH Mostly it was like, “Are you sure you don’t want to depart?”
LAW It was plenty of, “Let’s get you out of this.” There was plenty of tough love and bolstering up.
EH Especially at this point in our life, it’s really hard to beat this. You’ve got to beat this [friendship] to get in here, because our lives are so big and wonderful and fun, and we provide one another a lot. So it’s like, why interrupt that?
LAW Our plan is simply to spend the long run together and to be in our little bestieville. In our tiny home community with our friends, after which send out for a big-armed man every on occasion.
Which roles of one another have been your favorites, and which do you’re thinking that deserve more attention?
LAW Give me your IMDB.
EH The Trouble with Dee Dee was very underrated. It’s hard to get independent movies really on the market.
LAW I feel you need to have won Dancing with the Stars.
EH But I made it to the ultimate.
LAW You probably did. I can say it now that it’s over: She wasn’t given the scores she deserved for doing proper ballroom. I do know because I did ballroom in a movie and I used to be trained quite well.
Now we have to ask: Is there a likelihood for a Parent Trap sequel?
LAW That’s a Disney query.
EH Above our pay grade.
Where would your characters, Meredith and Chessy, be?
EH I feel by a big consensus, people want Chessy and Meredith to get together.
LAW That’s on Reddit. That’s a really specific group of individuals on Reddit.
EH I wouldn’t say no.
LAW Well, then you definately’d must kiss me.
EH No tongue. You could be so lucky.
For more on Walter and Hendrix, watch the exclusive video above and pick up the latest issue of Us Weekly — on newsstands now.