.

But I won’t, because every girl born within a decade of the now-36-year-old actor has some version of the same story—at least one film from LiLo’s decades-deep career that’s sat with them in a personality-forming way. And, of course, some narrative they’ve crafted in their mind about the nature of her celebrity and what she’s like as a person all this time later.

I’m going to focus instead on the right now, because Lindsay is right here in front of me in the iconically freckled flesh. She’s come all the way from her home in Dubai to shoot a cover story that’s a very big deal for obvious reasons. Getting the famously private star – so private that she moved to Dubai because paparazzi are illegal there – to sit down for a candid interview has been a feat nearly a year in the making. And we have a lot of new ground to cover.

I don’t want to get in the way — please keep doing whatever you need to while we talk. Kris, you two have worked together for a long time, right?

KB: I remember on SNL, she was going through a real self-tanner phase. The old-school lighting guy was like, “She’s too tan! She’s too tan!”

We did a million things together. She was a new starlet and at that age where makeup was becoming more important. And she was always having fun with it and always had an opinion.

LL: Always more contour.

KB: She knew what she wanted to look like. She had a very strong vision for herself. And she was always a bit ahead of the curve with glam. Even before the whole glowy skin thing, she was like, “I want it to be shinier.”

 

Oh, god. I just did that and it was the most painful thing, like rubber bands snapping actual fire into my face. I was sitting there the whole time like, Is this really what I’m willing to do for beauty?

KB: It’s always worth it.

LL: Here’s the trick: You have to ask them to give you the numbing cream ahead of time and put it on yourself at home an hour before you go.

It’s always nice in the age of filtered selfies to dig into what really goes into getting camera-ready.

LL: Right, because we only ever know what we see on the screen. We don’t know what’s happening behind it.

What are your feelings about social media?

LL: I don’t even know. There’s too much of it. No, it is nice. Because now I feel like…when I first started out in the business, none of us had a say in how to control our own narrative. There were paparazzi pictures, and then people ran with it. So I think it’s really good that in this day and age, people can say who they are and who they want to be. And I admire and appreciate that. I’m a little jealous because I didn’t have that. But I think it moves really fast and I just try to keep up as best I can. And I check everything before I post it. I’ll send it to people. Because you have to.