Credit: Video Screenshot, 'Freakier Friday', DisneyAs almost any millennial woman and they will tell you that one of the most popular and crush-worthy male actors of the early 2000s was Chad Michael Murray. Between starring in the hit series One Tree Hill and appearing in some iconic rom-coms, there were few actors teenage girls got doe-eyed for. Who could forget his role as Austin in A Cinderella Story (2004) and Jake in Freaky Friday (2003)?
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It’s been more than twenty years since those teenage heartthrob years, but Murray has remained a staple in Hollywood, appearing in dozens of movies and television shows. He’s become a staple in romantic Christmas movies, and currently stars in the popular series Sullivan’s Crossing.
Back in May 2023, Disney announced that a Freaky Friday sequel was finally in the works, and fans rejoiced. What made things even better was that Lindsay Lohan (Anna Coleman) and Jamie Lee Curtis (Tess Coleman) had excitedly signed onto the project.
In June 2024, Lohan confirmed that the movie was in active development, and one month later, it was also confirmed that Chad Michael Murray would be reprising his role as Jake, Anna’s love interest in the first film.
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Freakier Friday finally hit theaters on August 8, and fans are loving seeing Loham Curtis, and Murray reprise their roles on the big screen. They all seem to have only gotten better with age, and their affection for each other shines through.
While it seems that everything has gone right for Chad Michael Murray, that wasn’t always the case. In fact, before he became the actor we know and love, he spent months in the hospital and nearly died.
It was an experience that would change the course of his life.
Murray recently sat down for an interview on the Great Company podcast and revealed that, when he was just 15 years old, his intestines became twisted. This led to a two-month hospital stay, where Murray underwent surgery and even a blood transfusion.
It was a lot. We had surgery, I had internal bleeding, I lost 50 percent of my blood. I was on my deathbed.
I just remember seeing my father, the weakest I’d ever seen him, and a priest at the end of my bed. They’re talking about last rites and all that stuff, and [the nurse, Sandy] gave me a blood transfusion to save my life. It saved my life.
Thankfully, the blood transfusion saved his life, but it did not prevent him from needing another surgery. His intestines becoming twisted had done a lot of damage, and doctors were required to go in and “clean things up.”
Regardless, you’re in there for two months, and you know, my organs shut down because you have blood all coagulated around them, and they had to wait till everything [healed more]. So, anyway, I had to have a second surgery to clean everything up.
As fate would have it, one of Murray’s other nurses, Alana, was a model, and he says that she told him he should consider modeling. That is when he told her that he wasn’t really interested in being a model but did want to be an actor. Alana told him that he could always segue from modeling into acting, and when he got out of the hospital, she would put him in contact with a modeling company she knew.
Alana was true to her word, and it didn’t take long for the teen to book several modeling gigs. Then, he met an agent who encouraged him to go out to Los Angeles for a week and audition for various roles. He ended up securing some recurring roles in both Gilmore Girls and Dawson’s Creek.
The rest, they say, is history.
Were you excited to see Chad Michael Murray return as Jake in Freakier Friday? Which of the original film’s stars were you most excited to see? What did you think of Freakier Friday? Does it match up to the original? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!