Lindsay Plays a Young '60's Bride

In the new film Bobby about a group of diverse people at the Ambassador Hotel in L.A. when Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, 20-year-old Lindsay Lohan plays a serious role as a teen marrying a high school friend to keep him from being drafted and sent to Vietnam. Elijah Wood plays the "friend" and their relationship blossoms into something more.

We chatted briefly with Lindsay, Elijah and superstar Sharon Stone with whom Lindsay has a touching scene in the film. Lindsay was honored to be in the movie and learned a lot about the 1960's for the role. The actress may be a magnet for car crashes but, on screen, she's just magnetic as a hopeful young woman in the midst of chaos. Check it out...

TeenHollywood: Elijah and Lindsay, you two weren't around during this time period so did you talk to anyone like family members or friends about their experiences or did you do any research for the role?

Lindsay: Well Emilio played a lot of Bobby Kennedy's speech throughout the film and we had that there. I spoke to my grandmother, but I didn't know half of the things that I know now.

Elijah: I also watched a lot of documentaries as well. Emilio [Estevez, the director] was really forthcoming to the cast with documentary material, the speech from the ballroom that night just to kind of familiarize himself with the [Bobby Kennedy] legacy who this man was and what the event was to really get into the mind space of that time so it was very valuable.

TeenHollywood: What attracted you two to the parts? Was it the story or working with Emilio who is so passionate about the work?

Elijah: It was a little bit of both. It was Bobby's words and Bobby's influence that made me want to be a part of it, but it's ultimately meeting Emilio, and sitting down and talking to him for two hours about the movie that he wanted to make and his passion for it and how he had already been on a couple year journey to get this thing to the screen that really made me want to be a part of it as well.

Lindsay: It was also nice for me to have an opportunity to take on the role of someone from another generation. For the young girls that I accumulated [as fans], I can put a message of awareness out there by what's going on in the character. I brought my sister to the set and Sharon met her. She didn't know who Bobby Kennedy was and she learned so much from being there. And she went home and she did say stuff to her friends and I think it's important. She'll be 13 in December. But I think it's important for me to use my celebrity status or whatever it's become, in a positive way. Whether it's through characters or through being with a cast of amazing people that I learned from and just putting it out there.

TeenHollywood: Sharon and Lindsay, how did you inspire each other and learn from each other?

Lindsay: I think I was more inspired by Sharon. She's someone that I look up to in terms of what you do for other people in the world [Sharon's charity work]. I have more to learn from her than she does from me in the sense that I just really respect her. [Looking at Sharon] You held my hand in the scenes and I remember grabbing you when I was nervous about one of the speeches I had to make. And we both started to cry in the scene and it was nice to work with someone who I didn't feel like I had to act with. I didn't feel like I had to do anything really. It just kind of happened.

Sharon: I think we have a lot of choices in our lives about what we can do with the power that we have. And I think the reason that we all really admire and love a person like Bobby Kennedy is that he chose to be powerful by example instead of being an example by flaunting his power. So I think that when you look at someone like Lindsay who's grown up in the public eye, it's very hard to be a child in the public eye and go through all of the things of being a teenager and an adolescent. She's only 20. How would you like to be a teenager in the public eye? At 20, Lindsay's chosen to make films now about these kind of things that have consciousness, social and human consciousness. I think that it's really terrific that she's chosen to make a picture here that speaks to her generation about something that's really strongly political in a time when we have a very difficult political situation. She's [saying] what you do as a young person has impact. And to speak to that from her very strong voice is to use her power as an example. I really commend her for doing that and for doing that in this film.

Lindsay: [whose eyes are full of tears at all of the nice stuff Sharon is saying about her] Can I use that Kleenex? What she said was really sweet and kind and meant a lot to me. It was positive, not negative.

TeenHollywood: What was the tough subject in that scene with Sharon that was so hard for you, Lindsay?

Lindsay: When I was in the beauty parlor [scene] my character really hits a spot when she talks about the men who are over [in Vietnam] fighting for their country. Was there anything that she [Lindsay's character] can do? The timing of it wasn't appropriate [in those days] especially for a young woman to do what she did by marrying a man so he didn't have to go to war, to really believe in that. [Sharon's character] had her own issues with her husband so it kind of hit us both.

TeenHollywood: What are you working on now?

Lindsay: I'm starting a new movie with Keira Knightley called The Best Time of Our Lives that John Maybury is directing. It's a 1920's piece set in Wales.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.