{"id":126337,"date":"2025-08-07T12:38:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T12:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/126337\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T12:38:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T12:38:09","slug":"actor-stephen-tobolowsky-on-freakier-friday-body-swapping-and-dallas-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/126337\/","title":{"rendered":"Actor Stephen Tobolowsky on \u2018Freakier Friday,\u2019 body-swapping and Dallas culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Stephen Tobolowsky<\/a>\u2019s team encouraged him to audition for a movie<\/a> called Freaky Friday, his first thought was \u201cOh God, how low we have fallen.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Dallas native and Southern Methodist University alumnus was fresh off a stint on Broadway with a Tony nomination for his role in Morning\u2019s at Seven to show for it. <\/p>\n

That career high came after playing a slew of memorable characters \u2014 the oft-quoted, pestering Ned Ryerson in 1993\u2019s Groundhog Day<\/a>, a Ku Klux Klan leader in the 1988 thriller Mississippi Burning. <\/p>\n

But Tobolowsky would change his mind about Freaky Friday, the 2003 body-swap flick that became a cult classic, after reading its script. \u201cThis is amazing,\u201d he thought. <\/p>\n

News Roundups<\/p>\n

Catch up on the day’s news you need to know.<\/p>\n

Now, more than two decades later, he is reprising his role as the grumpy teacher Mr. Bates in the reboot Freakier Friday, which again stars Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan as mother and daughter. <\/p>\n

Ahead of the sequel\u2019s theatrical release on Aug. 8, <\/b>Tobolowsky, 74, spoke with The Dallas Morning News from his home in California. <\/p>\n

He had not yet seen the movie (jury duty caused him to miss the premiere), but reflecting on his appearance, he said, \u201cMy first experience was so good, I assumed I would have a good time again. And I did.\u201d <\/p>\n

What do you remember from filming <\/b>Freaky Friday<\/b>? <\/b><\/p>\n

I show up the first day to Freaky Friday and Jamie Lee Curtis has called us into this classroom \u2014 all the actors \u2014 and she\u2019s at the front of the class. She said, \u201cEverybody, this is a very important movie we\u2019re doing and I want everyone to be on their best. We don\u2019t want anyone being late. We don\u2019t want anyone goofing off. We put all of our fun on the screen.\u201d She was this great leader.<\/p>\n

So I shot Freaky Friday. It\u2019s kind of a cute movie, OK? And I\u2019m walking down Hollywood Boulevard one night. This is just absolutely the weirdest story in the world. And Mark Waters, the director of Freaky Friday, comes out of a movie theater across the street from the Chinese Theater. Mark Waters says, \u201cOh, Stephen, have you seen any of Freaky Friday?\u201d I go, \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark brings me into this theater and he starts showing me scenes. I\u2019m thinking this could be one of the best movies I\u2019ve ever seen.<\/p>\n

What stood out to you? <\/b><\/p>\n

We all have this desire to see where we were before.<\/p>\n

[Freaky Friday] plugs into the idea of, where was I? Where did I make the mistake? Where did I do the thing right that I didn\u2019t expect I would do right?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the magic of being able to look back.<\/p>\n

Did you have any teachers who reminded you of Mr. Bates?<\/b><\/p>\n

Several teachers at Kimball [High School]. My physics teacher, Melvin Moses. There\u2019s a little bit of Mr. Bates in him. My algebra teacher. They both fancied themselves as kind of humorous, but we were always so scared of them because they were so strict. <\/p>\n

But when you\u2019re an actor, you don\u2019t try to let the tail wag the dog. I don\u2019t want to say, \u201cWell I\u2019m playing a teacher so I\u2019m gonna take elements of one of my teachers into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Mr. Bates], he\u2019s someone who never achieved what he thought he could achieve. And because of that he is a little jealous and a little envious.<\/p>\n

If you could swap bodies with someone, who would it be? <\/b><\/p>\n

One of the greatest people I ever knew was our Black maid, Lenora. We grew up in an incredibly racist area. She went from being our maid to eventually a district manager of Avon [a cosmetics company]. And then she came over to our house and said, \u201cI\u2019d like to buy your house and every stick of furniture in it.\u201d My Mom and Dad said, \u201cOK.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said, \u201cI always wanted to live in the house where I worked and I wanted to own it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doing stuff in show business, it\u2019s make-believe courage, but to know someone with real courage and going through real obstacles, that would be somebody whose shoes I would like to step inside. <\/p>\n

Some people <\/b>on Reddit<\/b><\/a> think Dallas lacks culture. What do you say? <\/b><\/p>\n

There were so many young writers when I was in Dallas at school [at SMU] \u2026 and they stayed writers their entire life. Creating things. There were ideas coming out of people\u2019s heads. Culture comes in a lot of forms. Dallas is certainly a business center. But it also has art.<\/p>\n

I get people from Dallas texting me every year saying, \u201cWe\u2019re doing a project in Dallas, would you be a part of it?\u201d When I\u2019m free, I come back and do it. <\/p>\n

How would you describe Dallas to people who\u2019ve never been here?<\/b><\/p>\n

People are walking fast. They\u2019re not lazy. They\u2019re doing stuff. Dallas is a town for doers and not just for watchers.<\/p>\n

\"Morton<\/a>Morton Meyerson followed unconventional path to business success<\/a><\/p>\n

As a stubborn young computer jock, he never thought he\u2019d run EDS or have Dallas\u2019 symphony hall named for him. But the Fort Worth native managed both.<\/p>\n

\"Mort<\/a>Dallas on Mort Meyerson\u2019s final days: Ross Perot Jr. calls his impact \u2018immeasurable\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?\u201d\u00a0asked Mary Oliver. As Dallas giants from Tom Luce to Skip Hollandsworth explain, Meyerson\u2019s answer was: A lot.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Morton Meyerson stares down the end of his life, and the modern Dallas he helped build<\/a><\/p>\n

At 86, the brilliant mind behind Ross Perot\u2019s EDS is one of the last lions of a bygone era. He\u2019s worried about what comes next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Stephen Tobolowsky\u2019s team encouraged him to audition for a movie called Freaky Friday, his first thought was…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":126338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,19892,53,5546,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-126337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-high-profile","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-pop-culture","13":"tag-texas","14":"tag-tx","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114987526181968712","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}