Self-proclaimed Mean Girls superfan Ian Harding geeked out over the opportunity to work with Lindsay Lohan on Netflix’s Our Little Secret.
“I just got this audition, and I was like, ‘Oh, it’s Lindsay Lohan,’” Harding, 38, exclusively told Us Weekly while promoting the holiday rom-com that premieres on Wednesday, November 27.
Harding recalled fangirling over the director, Stephen Herek, as well, whom he said, “Has done most of the movies of my childhood.” He revealed, “I was obsessed with his Three Musketeers. It was my Halloween costume.”
When it came to playing Logan in the film, who is Avery’s (Lohan) ex-boyfriend turned partner in crime, Harding said it was a no-brainer.
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“I didn’t tell her this because I thought it would make it weird, but I loved Mean Girls because Mean Girls came out when I was in high school,” Harding told Us of Lohan, who played Cady Heron in the 2004 hit. “It kind of pushed me over the edge of, like, wanting to be an actor.”
The Pretty Little Liars alum remembered, “I think at that point in my life, I’d only seen movie stars as being these sort of, like, far off distance people. I didn’t really see myself in any of them. Then I remember seeing Mean Girls.”
Harding explained that since he’s “pretty much the same age” as Lohan, 38, it was like watching a “peer do this kind of work” and that inspired him.
“I think I saw the movie like five or six times,” he confessed. “So, the fact that I was like, ‘Oh, I would be working with this person,’ of course, I jumped at it.”
Lohan was one of the very first names attached to the project and although Harding signed on as soon as he got the role, he said filming was pushed back due to the Hollywood WGA and SAG strikes.
“Then we finally got to do it. It was just another one of those sort of big, fun [movies with] all these actors coming together,” Harding told Us. “It wasn’t just hanging out with Lindsay, which was awesome. There were times where it was me and Kristin Chenoweth and Dan Bucatinsky and Katie Baker, Tim Meadows [and] John Rudnitsky. We all just got to hang out. It was so fantastic.”
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Our Little Secret follows two exes, Logan and Avery, who get awkwardly thrust together for Christmas after realizing their new partners are siblings. Logan is dating Cassie (Baker), while Avery is in a long-term relationship with Cameron (Rudnitsky).
Throughout the film, Avery gets help from Logan to try and win over their partners’ mom, Erica (Chenoweth), who is the ultimate control freak. Through a series of unfortunate events — think weed gummies at church and awkward Secret Santa gifts — the exes had to decide if they were the ones who are meant to be.
“I think they just get each other, even though they haven’t spoken in 10 years,” Harding told Us of Logan and Avery. “There’s so much shared history and they like grew up together.”
He teased, “Through the insanity of needing to be under the same roof and pretend and keep that going. I can’t help but think [they’re] like, ‘Wait a minute, wouldn’t it just be easier if it was just you and I?’ Like, ‘Why do we have to go through this thing?’”
While Harding played coy about who ends up with who in the movie, he told Us he was the ultimate winner based on everything he learned from his castmates on set.
“The movie was almost kind of, like, just icing on the cake. The real cake was getting to talk to Tim Meadows about SNL or Kristin Chenoweth with about theater … and Lindsay’s, you know, epic sort of Hollywood journey,” Harding remembered fondly.
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The Holidazed star said it was “fun” coming to work every day, joking that he wasn’t exactly “stirring the pot” but he did “ask questions” about everyone’s career.
In addition to laughing with Meadows, who was also in Mean Girls, and chatting with about being “new parents,” Harding was in awe of Chenoweth, 56. (Harding welcomed his first child, a son, with wife Sophie Hart in September 2022. Lohan became a mother in July 2023, welcoming son Luai with husband Bader Shammas.)
“She brings such joy. She’s just got also these, like, nuggets of wisdom, coming from this tiny human,” Harding told Us about Chenoweth. “She has such power and presence and she’s so encouraging. She feels like a big sister at times.”
The actor gushed over Chenoweth — who is a Broadway legend — and her opinion of his voice after she heard him humming a tune one day.
“She was like, ‘Honey, do you sing?’ I said, ‘I mean, I can string a tune together.’ She’s like, ‘No, I heard it. You can sing. I heard it like, you should do something with that,’” he recalled. “Then the next thing you know, you’re like, ‘Maybe I should write an album. I don’t know.’”
Harding joked that he “went home and wrote down in my journal, like, half the things she said.” He added that he left the set thinking, “I hope that I can have like an ounce of her sort of grace when I’ve been in the industry for as long as she has.”
Our Little Secret premieres on Netflix Wednesday, November 27.
