Oprah Winfrey schedules Lindsay Lohan, Hugh Jackman interviews

Remember that much-hyped chat between Oprah Winfrey and Lindsay Lohan, the one where the former “Mean Girls” star tries her best to explain that treatment has changed her this time? Well, we now have an official date for that and some other chats that the talk-show icon has planned on her OWN series “Oprah’s Next Chapter.”

The Lohan interview will take place on Sunday, August 18, following up a series of interviews featuring Hugh Jackman (July 28), Gloria Estefan (August 4), and the cast of the Lee Daniels movie “The Butler” (August 11), and it will serve as the precursor to some sort of documentary series featuring Lohan that debuts on the network early next year, where she attempts to show the progress in her life following her stay in treatment.

We act cynical about the whole ordeal, but we want to see Lohan do well in the same sense that never want to root against any troubled star; but at this point, it’s better to take a wait-and-see approach than to actually be optimistic about anything. Hopefully, Oprah will be able to translate some of her positive aura over to Lindsay, and push her back in the right direction. One way in which this could happen? Having a camera crew around her that consistently reminds her that anything and everything that she does could end up being on TV, and not necessarily through the power of favorable editing.

This gig could end up being mutually beneficial, given that this could help to a certain extent to push Oprah’s network to a higher echelon of ratings. That’s been it’s problem since the very beginning, but Oprah’s going to be making a pretty sizable investment in Lindsay. Let’s just hope for her sake that it pays off.

Photo: OWN