SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers about the ending of Our Little Secret, available now on Netflix.

Kristin Chenoweth had to channel her inner bad girl to play Lindsay Lohan’s judgmental mother-in-law in Netflix’s latest holiday rom-com, Our Little Secret.

To create the sweet, “bless your heart” Southern mom, Chenoweth relied on comedians like Teri Garr and Carol Burnett (who she says is “like my second mom”) as well as people-watching at malls and restaurants . She even took a few hints from some of her own relatives – to which, she says taciturnly: “I’d like to stay in the family, so I’ll keep quiet.”

The film stars Lohan and Pretty Little Liars alum Ian Harding as ex-partners who are forced to spend Christmas under the same roof after finding out their current partners are siblings. According to Harding, the film stands out among other holiday films because of the unpredictability of its plot.

“Sometimes in the Christmas movies you see… by the fifth minute it’s clear that these people are going to come together,” he says. “I like that in some moments it’s like maybe they’re healing old wounds or coming together in some way, but in the end they could definitely be friends.”

Luckily, things work out for the estranged couple, who reunite at the end of the film. “It felt good because it felt like the right thing for the characters,” Lohan says. They should be together! They just had to go on their own journey and find themselves in their own way to realize what was meant to be. They both had to mature in different ways.”

The less mature versions of Lohan and Harding’s characters are brought to the audience’s attention in the film’s opening, which takes place ten years in the past (when they were still a couple). To prepare for the scene, Harding and Lohan blasted their favorite hits from the early 2010s in the car – after Harding realized when that was actually the case a decade ago.

“Maybe that’s what happens when you’re in your 30s like me and you think, ‘Oh, 10 years ago.’ What kind of music was that?’” Harding jokes. “And then I realized I was thinking about 20 years ago. I think I’m a lot younger than I am.”

The film was a trip down memory lane in more ways than one for Lohan, who is flanked in this year’s Netflix holiday series by “Mean Girls” co-star Lacey Chabert and “Freaky Friday” love interest Chad Michael Murray (Chabert leads ” Hot Frosty”)” while Murray stars in “The Merry Gentlemen”).

Lohan says she can’t wait for fans to see Murray in “Freakier Friday,” which is set to hit theaters in August. “It’s exciting. Chad comes into the film with a vengeance, just like Jake did on a motorcycle in Freakier Friday. It’s just a really fun movie. I have a feeling people will laugh a lot. In addition to a lot of passion, there are also other stories to tell. I’m really looking forward to sharing it with everyone.”

Lohan adds that she and Jamie Lee Curtis “had so much fun” being on screen together again – but that’s not always a good thing, she says with a laugh. “We cause trouble when we work together. We just talk all the time. Constantly talking and yapping. Music is playing in the car and she’s playing Chappell Roan. They say, ‘We’re trying to shoot here!’”