These Parent Trap Stars Have A Surprising Real-Life Family Connection

As fans of Nancy Meyers’ The Parent Trap will recall, the 1998 remake tells the heartwarming story of identical twins Annie and Hallie (Lindsay Lohan), who unexpectedly cross paths for the very first time at summer camp after being separated at birth. Now, more than 25 years after the film’s release, two of the film’s biggest stars have discovered their own surprising real-life family connection.

Appearing on the Ancestry YouTube series unFamiliar, Lisa Ann Walter, who played the fan-favorite character of Chessy, stopped by Manhattan’s Lower East Side to discover more about her family roots. However, while filming the series, Walter was stunned to learn that her Parent Trap co-star and close friend, Elaine Hendrix (aka Meredith Blake), shares a very similar family history. As it turns out, Hendrix’s great-grandparents lived just a few streets down from Walter’s great-grandparents on New York City’s Elizabeth Street in the early 1900s.

“It’s crazy. And back then there were very specific neighborhoods that very specific groups of people lived in,” Hendrix told Entertainment Weekly of their discovery. “Two blocks was like nothing, that was basically next door to one another, and they were part of the same community, and they had to have known each other. So it just makes sense. It’s like, ‘Oh, of course. Of course, we have this connection.’”

Meanwhile, Walter shared that the revelation didn’t come as too much of a surprise. “I half expected to be told that we were actually related,” the actor explained. “For real. But then when they said they lived a block and a half from each other, I was like, ‘Yeah. Yup.’”

As mentioned, Walter and Hendrix have enjoyed a decades-long friendship since first meeting on The Parent Trap set in the late ’90s, and speaking to Bustle on the 2023 SAG Awards red carpet, the besties discussed the likelihood of a sequel. “Oh god yes,” Hendrix replied when asked if she’d be open to starring in a sequel to The Parent Trap. “We would absolutely do a movie together.”