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Hayley Mills returns to Hollywood – 63 years after The Parent Trap

Iconic child star never thought she’d make another film but stars in M. Night Shyamalan’s latest project, Trap

Hayley Mills, the former child star, said that she did not think she would make another film, but now she has returned to Hollywood at the age of 78.
The actress, who rose to fame after appearing in a string of Disney movies in the 60s, said she did not believe she would ever get the chance to star in another film again.
After her hugely successful career as a child, memorably playing a set of twins in 1961’s The Parent Trap, she disappeared from the silver screen until renowned director M. Night Shyamalan sought her out for his new production, called Trap.
She said: “[It was] completely unexpected, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever make another movie — I wasn’t shedding any tears.
“People often look at you and think, ‘This is a Disney actress, isn’t it? It’s a part I would have never expected to be considered for.
“It was lovely to be on a movie set again.
“There’s more space, you can take deeper breaths… And certainly, on a movie of Night’s, you don’t rush.”
Mills, the daughter of actor Sir John Mills, became a worldwide star at the age of 12 after her performance in Whistle Down the Wind.
Following the film’s success, Disney signed her up for a number of other hit movies including The Parent Trap and Tiger Bay.
But after her success as a child, which included hit albums on both sides of the Atlantic, she found it difficult to get roles in Hollywood as a mature actress, despite a successful theatre career.
She undertook a number of jobs in television which included 1980s series The Love Boat, and Good Morning, Miss Bliss, and more recently Wild At Heart and a brief “blink and you miss it” appearance in the long-running BBC series Death in Paradise this year and a similar brief cameo role in ITV’s Unforgotten.
When Shyamalan – the man behind The Sixth Sense, Signs and The Last Airbender – approached her and asked her to star in Trap she said she could not refuse.
She plays FBI profiler Dr Josephine Grant who is coaxed out of retirement to hunt down a psychopathic serial killer played by Josh Hartnett.
After a meeting with Douglas Aibel, Trap’s casting director, she travelled to Toronto to meet Shyamalan, Trap’s writer and director.
She said: “He’s the complete movie maker, from the beginning, middle and end.
“He understands the characters so very well. He knows their thought process. If you’re not thinking what he thinks your character should be thinking, he spots it instantly.
“It’s a movie that’s written, directed and funded by one man. It’s his movie. The sound, the music, is wonderful.
“And for somebody who shoulders so much, he’s so relaxed and funny and lovely and warm and encouraging and appreciative on the set.”
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter she said: “Dr Grant is brought in out of retirement to track down a serial killer.
“She’s been lecturing and writing books and things about killers and I think her age is a relevant factor in the movie for the protagonist.”
Mills’ move away from being a child star saw her suffer from bulimia along with feelings of failure, self loathing and depression.
She once said: “There was also the fear that I was growing up – something I felt no one wanted me to do – and that, if I stayed small and thin and looked like a child, maybe people would be more prepared to accept me.
“They didn’t want the new Hayley: they wanted the charming and appealing child, not the chubby, introverted adolescent.”

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