Elaine Hendrix reflects on her 18-year age gap with 'Parent Trap' costar Dennis Quaid: 'We had tremendous chemistry'

• Elaine Hendrix costarred in "The Parent Trap" opposite Dennis Quaid, an actor 18 years her senior.
• Hendrix played Meredith Blake, a 26-year-old publicist newly engaged to Quaid's Nick Parker.
• The actress recently told Insider that they had "tremendous chemistry" while filming the movie.

When Meredith Blake first enters the frame in Nancy Meyers' 1998 adaptation of "The Parent Trap," she's seen through Annie Parker's camera lens.

The zoomed-in shot captures the 26-year-old publicist (Elaine Hendrix) gliding hand-in-hand across the lawn with Annie's father, Nick Parker (Dennis Quaid). She keeps pace with the much older vineyard owner, allowing his hand to grab the small of her back.

In response, she coos into his ear and giggles, too infatuated to be bothered by the adolescent onlooker stationed at the upstairs window.

It might not be immediately clear whether the couple is truly in love, but their physical gravitation toward each other is anything but subtle - even to the unamused 11-year-old, played by Lindsay Lohan, spying from above.

"I thought we had tremendous chemistry," Hendrix, who played Meredith, told Insider ahead of the film's 23rd anniversary on Tuesday.

Hendrix and Quaid have an 18-year age gap between them

Like her character, Hendrix was 26 at the time of filming. Quaid, her on-screen love interest, was notably older at 44 years old.

"He's just such a guy," she said with a laugh when asked about her on-set dynamic with the actor.

"One of the generalized differences between men and women is that boys mature later and girls mature earlier. So I think I was sort of an older 26," Hendrix explained, also remembering Quaid as a "younger" 44.

"I think it worked well," she added.

Hendrix doesn't remember having a concrete conversation about why scriptwriters chose 26, specifically, as Meredith's age. The decision, she said, was made separately from her.

She suspects it's because the number is nearly equidistant between the twins' age and their father's age. Meredith's 26 is far enough from Nick's age to raise eyebrows and close enough to the twins' age to give them ammunition against her.

"The character had to be close enough to the twins' age but not so close that it was like, 'Oh, this is really creepy,'" Hendrix reasoned.

An age gap between partners didn't seem to bother Quaid either. In 2019, the actor got engaged to the 26-year-old Laura Savoie when he was 65 years old. His "Parent Trap" costar, now 50, couldn't resist pointing out the coincidental connection between Meredith and the age of Quaid's new fiancée.

"Watch out for those twins," Hendrix tweeted after the news of their engagement.

Hendrix thinks she and Meredith were both 'older' than their years

Being the same age as Meredith allowed Hendrix to draw numerous parallels between herself, a Tennessee-born actress making a name in Hollywood, and Meredith, a woman willing to plow through obstacles (like threatening to ship her future stepdaughter to boarding school in Switzerland) to get her way.

After watching "The Parent Trap" at least once a year since its release, Hendrix has come to opine that both she and Meredith were wise beyond their years.

"Clearly, Meredith Blake is not an average 26-year-old," she said, pointing to the character's flashy convertible, custom-fitted designer suits, and hot-and-heavy relationship with a "fabulous" vineyard owner.

"All of that I couldn't relate to," Hendrix said. She continued: "But how together she was and how ambitious she was - that I could definitely relate to."

"The Parent Trap" is available to stream on Disney+.