Freakier Friday Breakout Sophia Hammons Would Happily Body-Swap With Charli XCX

When the Freaky Friday sequel was first announced last year with Linday Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis (and pretty much the entire main cast) returning, our millennial hearts skipped a beat. For a lot of us, the 2003 film and its rebellious, guitar-swinging protagonist hit at a time of peak girlhood. It was relatable, it was humorous, and like most LL movies of that era, it became an instant classic that we're still quoting and referencing today.

Taking place 22 years after the initial body swap, Freakier Friday, directed by Nisha Ganatra, finds Anna (Lohan) as a successful music exec with a teen daughter of her own and a soon-to-be stepdaughter, and Tess (Curtis) is continuing to build on her therapy empire. Once again navigating the trials and tribulations of merging families, they soon discover lightning can strike twice.

The sequel is everything you'd expect and more—nostalgic and silly while successfully pushing the narrative forward for a new generation. It has notable fashion moments galore (including a very fun makeover montage), Vanessa Bayer (who is bonkers as a jack-of-all-trades fortune teller), a Pink Slip reunion (with a new single!), and two exciting breakout leads in Julia Butters and Sophia Hammons, who play Anna's daughter Harper and future stepdaughter Lily, respectively.

Disney alum Hammons (Under Wraps and Under Wraps 2) is an immediate standout as Lily, an aspiring fashion designer hailing from London who has zero interest in gaining a new family. Her outfits are as good as her cutting one-liners, and the way Hammons embodies Tess (aka Curtis) as Lily with her physical comedy is so fun to watch.

Fittingly, we met with Hammons on a Friday to talk about her role in the summer's most anticipated film.

This movie is everything you'd expect and more. It's super nostalgic. Vanessa Bayer is amazing. Pink Slip returns—I loved. And it genuinely looked like so much fun to film. How would you sum it up?

It really was just a whole summer of fun and chaos but in the best, most endearing way. All of us truly did bond, everyone on that set, and it was so lovely to work with such talented women. It was a great environment, very welcoming, especially for Julia and I. Jamie and Lindsay have done this before, but it was so new for us, especially because we're also playing them. They were so sweet and really did take care of us.

The original film came out in 2003, which was three years before you were even born. When did it first pop up on your radar?

I think I saw it for the first time when I was like 12 or 13, so [it was] also a very pivotal moment in girlhood. I just remember it being such a comfort film and so funny. It really is just a fun, funny film, and I remember when I watched the first one. That is how I felt about it. It made me laugh. It's one that I would go back to.

It's such an iconic film for us millennials, but it's nice to hear it resonates with a Gen Z audience too.

That iconic storyline—body-swap movies—I always link them to Freaky Friday. There's an original, which is also great, but when I think of any body-swap movie, I think of Lindsay and Jamie. It was a phenomenon.

This was also peak Lindsay Lohan era. Do you have a favorite LL movie?

Oh, that's a really good question. Well, I have to say that I specifically loved her in Freaky Friday because growing up, when I first watched it around 12 or 13, I was obsessed with Avril Lavigne. I wanted to be this skater girl so bad, and I remember talking to Lindsay about the colored streaks in her hair in that movie, and she was like, "Oh, I kind of regret them, but I did them because I liked Avril Lavigne so much." And I was like, "Maybe that's why I felt so drawn to that character" because I also had streaks in my hair when I was younger. I just love, loved, loved her version of Anna, so it was cool to see Julia play Anna too—well, Anna but older.

Let's talk about your character in Freakier Friday. Lily is a British transplant, so you had to do a British accent for the film. Did that part of it make you nervous?

It definitely was nerve-racking in the beginning, and even when I did the initial tape, I was just like, "Alright, I'm gonna just wing it. I'm gonna try my best here." I remember watching a lot of videos of other British actors and how they sound. But you know what's funny? I was looking back at my original self-tape, and I have improved a lot. They gave me a dialect coach to work with—Manny [Jacinto] and I both worked with [them]—and it was great.

There's one exercise we would do where we would have a cork in our mouth to pronounce the lines because British dialect is super rounded, so if you have something in between your teeth that's keeping your mouth round, it gives you that muscle memory. We would be on set with corks in our mouths, and people would be like, "What is happening?!" But there's a bunch of tongue twisters that we had to say in a British accent. There's one that's like, "Betty bought a bit of butter." It's so difficult. It definitely takes some time to be comfortable with [the accent], especially because Nisha, the director who's wonderful, is a big fan of improv, and sometimes, she'd be like, "Okay, now say it like this" or "Say it as if this is happening." And it's like I can't really improvise because I have to think about British cadence or they'll use a different word for something.

Did Lohan give you any advice on the accent having done it herself for The Parent Trap?

Actually, we had a few freak-out scenes, all of us four, [me, Julia, Lindsay, and Jamie]. When my character would get angry, I would lose the accent a little bit, and she'd be the one to clock it every time because, like you said, she's done it before. One time, we were doing this scene where we're yelling, and I lost the British accent and trailed off because it was also improv, and she was like, "Wait, the British accent. Where's the British accent?" And I was like, "Oh, God!"

Lily is an aspiring fashion designer and has so many great looks throughout the film. Can you take me inside the fittings for Lily and those early conversations that you and costume designer Natalie O'Brien had about Lily's look?

Lily went through a whole bunch of different phases during the first few fittings. I remember there was a moment where she was a little more on the edgier side, like darker colors and looser clothing and playing with different [proportions] and materials. … We definitely still do play with different materials, but they're all a little more fitting for her character, which is more loud. I'm not saying that she's loud, but [her style is] bright colors and a little bit out of the box. … Her way of expressing herself is through fashion, so we all realized that we can't really dull her. We can't dull her personality with the clothing because that is where she shines through a lot.

There were just so many fun pieces, but the ones we landed on really are wonderful, and everything was comfortable, which is a really big thing for me. It was also so great to see Jamie wear those clothes like that. When I played Tess, it was fun to play around with that dynamic. I think fashion is a big part of the storyline for honestly every character, so it was great to play a character who specifically really does care about fashion.

Did you have a favorite look of Lily's?

I do. Her introduction look is awesome because the way it's revealed makes me very happy. She also has this fun Vivienne Westwood number, a few actually. Big Vivienne Westwood girl. But yeah, her first look is very special to me.

How does Lily's style compare to your own?

If I could, I would have taken everything home. And you know, it's so funny—one of the dresses that [Lily] wears, one of our producers, Kristin Burr, came in wearing the [same] dress the next day. She was like, "I loved it, so I just got it too." But I think my outfits in real life, the way Sophia dresses, is much more simple and laid-back. It's funny. Julia and I talk about this all the time. Us in real life, Julia and I, I'm much more Harper, and Julia's just as laid-back as Harper, but she also loves makeup, loves Drag Race, and is so great at fashion. She's always like, "Look at this Schiaparelli dress," and I'm like, "Oh my God, I don't know anything about that. I literally have my surfboard over here." When we were filming, Julia was always like, "Oh, I love your outfits. Those are so cool," and I was like, "That's so funny because I like your outfits." She has this little overall number, and I'm like, "I love those."

Let's talk about Julia. She plays Lily's future stepsister and nemesis in the film, but in real life, you two are the best of friends.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and she's on this poster. I live in L.A. now, but I grew up in Colorado, and I've had this poster since the movie came out in my room. I was a huge fan of hers, and I knew one day we were gonna be friends. I just knew it. They wouldn't tell me who I was doing the chemistry read with, and then they told me the night before, and I freaked out. I was like, "Oh my gosh, I don't even care if I don't get this film. I have to be friends with her." I totally felt that way also after we actually met and hung out in person for the chemistry read. It really was instant, and we've honestly been inseparable since. It's so funny because we haven't seen each other in a week or something, and both of us are like, "What's going on? What is happening? This isn't normal." We literally talk every single day. What a great connection. Truly, it's insane and cosmic.

Before we actually went in the room and did the sides in the chemistry read, they put us in a room to have us talk and meet and stuff like that. Nisha told us that she actually just left us in there for longer because she heard us laughing so hard and just getting along, and she was like, "I'm just gonna leave them in there for a while."

Were you fangirling a bit, or did you play it cool?

You know those friend crushes? It was more like that. I admire her so much as an actor, and I just thought she'd be a really cool person. So it was more like, "Okay, we need to be friends," and that's what happened. I totally forgot that we were even there, that I was still auditioning. It was like "Wait, this is just me hanging out with my friend."

How was it getting to play those frenemy moments together?

It's fun because we got to play with two dynamics, being frenemies and also mother-daughter, which was great because [Julia] always describes me as maternal, so the mother-daughter relationship was very easy to play with her. But we talk about this all the time. If we actually hated each other, it would be awful to play people who hate each other because then there would be meaning to the words we say. There is meaning to the words we say obviously, but there's just a level of trust when you know that you love the other person so much that you can take away any sort of insecurity or fear of hurting the other person because you know that we're playing different people, and at our core, we do really love each other.

We did this bonding exercise between me, Jamie, Lindsay, and Julia where we had to write letters to each other as our character, and I found [mine from Julia] the other day in a bag, and I sent it to the group chat. I was like, "Look [at] what I found!" It was a letter from Julia as Harper [to Lily], and it was like, "I really hate how obnoxious you are and how annoying you are, but I actually do secretly think you're really cool and really pretty, and I know one day we'll be friends" or something like that. It was a very sweet note.

I love that the group chat is still going strong.

Oh yeah! We were just texting because Lindsay's birthday was recently too.

Lily and Tess, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, switch bodies, so you're essentially channeling Curtis's Tess through your performance. What was that process like for you?

When I did the initial audition, I watched a bunch of interviews of [Jamie] to find her mannerisms. I was like, "I just gotta pick one that I can do over and over again that snaps me into that mindset as a character," and the one that I found was [Jamie] uses her pointer finger a lot when she talks. She uses both. So when I booked the role, besides Julia, the first person I had met was Jamie because Nisha had set up this little meeting in her office.

I went over, and we read a few scenes together, which was literally like the craziest moment of my life. It was surreal. But we did a bunch of exercises where we had to sit with each other for a really long time to read each other and pick up each other's mannerisms. She honestly taught me a lot of things that I didn't know about myself. … I'll be like, "Wait, do I do that?" And then I'll think about it and be like, "I do do that." A nervous tendency of mine is [to play with my hair], and I had no idea. [Jamie] does it all the time in the movie. She plays with her hair a lot, and I'm like, "Do I really play with my hair that much? Oh wait, I actually do a lot." We practiced how we walk with each other, and it was fun getting to be the British version of her.

In the spirit of Freaky Friday, if you could switch bodies with anyone for a day, who would it be, and why?

I get this question a lot too, and most of the time, I have a different answer. I would like to be Jamie for a day. I think that'd be really cool. Also, Julia and I do have this bit where we're obsessed with Charli XCX and Troye Sivan. I would love to be Charli for a day. I would love to be on that stage.

And Julia would be Troye?

Yes! We always talk about how Julia kind of resembles him in a way, especially in the "One of Your Girls" music video. Halloween costumes? We probably will. … We listened to them a lot last summer. Brat was at its peak last summer, and there are a lot of songs on that album that relate to Harper and Lily's relationship and that dynamic, especially "Girl, So Confusing." There's a reason why you resent this person so much. It's because you secretly admire them. So yeah, I would love to be Charli XCX.

Well, you already have the British accent mastered.

Yes, exactly!

Freakier Friday is in theaters August 8.

Photographer: Jonny Marlow
Stylist: Jordan Dorso
Hairstylist: Rena Calhoun
Makeup Artist: Jen Tioseco