Lindsay Lohan's director calls her a needy diva who's always late

Lindsay Lohan's director calls her a needy diva who's always late

Last year, Lindsay Lohan made what is certain to be a classic of modern cinema - The Canyons, co-starring porn star James Deen and directed by legendary Taxi Driver writer Paul Schrader.

At the time, Lindsay was running into all kinds of trouble - she was in the middle of several court cases and being followed by paparazzi all the time. This was pre-rehab, obvs.

And now, Paul Schrader has spoken out about exactly what it was like working with LiLo, and it sounds pretty stressful.

"Tardiness, tantrums, absences, neediness and psychodrama: Lindsay feels she must be experiencing an emotion in order to play it," he explains. "This leads to all sorts of emotional turmoil, not to mention on-set delays and melodrama."

Lindsay having a little cry on telly earlier this year

Comparing the actress to her idol Marilyn Monroe, he added: "I think Lohan has more natural talent than Monroe did, but like Monroe, her weakness is her inability to fake it. Monroe and Lohan exist in the space between actors and celebrities. People whose professional and personal performances are more or less indistinguishable. … We call them ‘troubled,’ ‘tormented,’ ‘train wrecks,’ but we can’t turn away. We can’t stop watching. They get under our skin in a way that controlled performers can’t."

But, he ends up admitting that she's actually pretty interesting to watch. "All the drama, all the stress, that means little. A director can shoot around misbehavior. He can’t shoot around lack of charisma."

The film's out on 9 August, and Lindsay's hoping to be out of rehab and at the premiere in Venice, at a film festival.

Her co-star James Deen previously described working w ith Lindsay as "like working with a child" and the screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis was once so annoyed at Lindsay failing to turn up to work, he Tweeted threats to go round to her house. She should just get really good at excuses, like the person who turns up ten minutes late to work everyday, mumbling something about buses and traffic ...