THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY

Manny Jacinto clocks in with heart, humour and humility.

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The first thing Manny Jacinto says to me is, “Wait, am I that old?”

He laughs, slightly sheepishly, but it’s the kind of self-aware question that catches you off guard in a good way. We're talking about Freakier Friday, the Disney sequel to the iconic body-swap comedy from 2003, in which Jacinto plays Eric Davies, the soon-to-be husband to Lindsay Lohan’s Anna Coleman, and future son-in-law to Tess, a role reprised by Jamie Lee Curtis.

When we catch him for a chat, Jacinto is home in Los Angeles, just days before embarking on a rigorous press tour to promote the film. Yet any premonition of chaos and fatigue is downplayed by his easy demeanour. He’s dressed in a simple white crew neck shirt, hair tousled and spoke with such affable charm you feel like you're catching up with an old friend.

“It’s my first time playing a dad,” Jacinto tells me, still mildly incredulous. “When I got the call, I had this moment of, ‘am I really at that stage now?’ I was genuinely about to go out and buy a sports car and embrace my ‘dad’ phase,” he adds with a laugh.

But what the role offered—beyond the existential crisis—was something the 38-year-old actor had long been searching for: the chance to play a romantic lead and a father figure in a mainstream studio film. That it happened to be in a franchise as beloved as Freaky Friday only added to the full-circle moment. “I watched it in theatres with my sister when it first came out,” he says. “It was huge. Lindsay was iconic.”