Cover Story: Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen

To continue the Ryder comparison, Lohan is also what's technically known as a "bad girl." She has already dated a rock star (well, not exactly rock -- it was Aaron Carter), but what really makes Lohan bad is the fact that she goes out to nightclubs in Manhattan and Los Angeles and occasionally dances on tables. All this has helped her new, adult image but could hurt her old, Disney-remake-princess image -- which has her handlers worried. When I suggest to Lohan's publicist that we go out to see a band together, the publicist snaps, "She's eighteen! I don't want any more stories of her out in clubs." My next suggestion -- an exhibit of cadavers at the California Science Center -- is greeted with an audible sigh.

So, instead, we meet at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. When Lohan shows up, she is sipping from a can of 7 Up and wearing a ribbed white tank top, torn jeans that reveal both kneecaps and a significant amount of right thigh, a bright-yellow rubber bracelet that says live strong and expensive-looking sandals decorated with jeweled crescents. She has dyed her hair a dark auburn shade. A too-intense fake tan accentuates the freckles that cover her arms, making Lohan look like the type of girl who will ask me to buy her cigarettes or order her a strawberry daiquiri. My first thought is: We should be in a mall food court.

It's been a busy time for her. Besides the turning-eighteen thing, her single "I Decide" is appearing on The Princess Diaries 2 soundtrack, and she has begun work on (of course) her debut album, to be released on Tommy Mottola's Casablanca Records. (Mottola famously nurtured the early careers of both his ex-wife Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez.) She's also getting ready to film a new movie, and she's trying to adjust to life as this moment's It girl. There have been the party-girl stories, and, worse, endless reports about father Michael Lohan's various run-ins with the law. Most recently, the elder Lohan was scheduled to appear in a Long Island courtroom after allegedly beating up his brother-in-law at a family function at the Lohan home. Before he could appear in court, Michael was arrested on another charge: stiffing a hotel for close to $4,000. He denies these allegations. He's also facing a separate charge of punching a New York sanitation worker whose garbage truck was blocking his car.

Despite all this, Lindsay is upbeat and seemingly unflappable. Though she looks older than eighteen, she pretty much acts her age, constantly fidgeting with her hair and occasionally blurting out giggly non sequiturs such as "Michael Jackson was in my dream last night! We were in a club. He came up to me and said, 'Hi, I'm Michael. Nice to meet you. I'm a big fan!' "

She doesn't have a driver's license yet, but she's become skilled at evading photographers, who now recognize her car and the cars of her friends. "Five cars of paparazzi chased me yesterday," she says, leaning forward, her eyes widening in the retelling. "I wanted to stop at Wendy's. My friend was like, 'You don't want them to take your picture there. It'll be, "They eat like us!" ' So I ducked down when we went through the drive-through."