Dennis Quaid may have played one of the most iconic dads on-screen in The Parent Trap, but when his real kids first saw Nick Parker, they had an understated reaction.
“‘Oh, it’s my dad,’ ” Quaid recalls them saying when they watched the 1998 Nancy Meyers movie for the first time.
The Golden Globe nominee tells PEOPLE that he didn’t intentionally show the movie to his kids, but that they happened upon it. Quaid says his three kids, Jack Quaid, whom he shares with his second wife Meg Ryan, and twins Thomas and Zoe Quaid, whom he shares with his third wife Kimberly Buffington, were most likely not at home when it happened.
“They were over at somebody’s house, and they probably put it on when they were like 6 or something on a play date,” the 70-year-old says.
Quaid, who is starring in the crime thriller Happy Face, out March 20 on Paramount+, also thinks watching The Parent Trap is the moment his children realized he was famous. His elder son, Jack, 32, has gone on to carve out his own acting career, nabbing starring roles in The Boys, Companion and the newly released Novocaine.
The dad of three starred as the dashing winemaker father in the beloved Disney remake of the 1961 original, alongside the late Natasha Richardson as the chic wedding dress designer mother Elizabeth and Lindsay Lohan in her breakout role as both Hallie and Annie (named after Meyers and her then-husband and producer Charles Shyer’s actual daughters).
At the time, Quaid was known for The Right Stuff, The Big Easy and acting primarily in science fiction movies. The pivot into playing the leading man and the comforting dad was a bold one but also one that made him a household name, from adult lovers of serious drama to an entire generation of kids.
Quaid became the quintessential on-screen father in part due to the movie’s iconic “dad” scene in which Annie (undercover as Hallie) meets Nick for the first time and can’t stop calling him “dad.”
The actor says he gets recognized most for The Parent Trap, followed by Reagan, The Rookie and his newer award-winning film The Substance.
“Everybody grew up with The Parent Trap and there’s always new kids coming along,” he says.
The actor even admits he jokes with fans that he was their “babysitter” because of how frequently many kids watched The Parent Trap. “I tell people, ‘I was your babysitter because your parents would put this on to go do what they wanted to do in the next room,’ ” Quaid says with a laugh.
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