Angourie Rice, Bebe Wood, and Directors Talk Favorite Mean Girls Moments, Musical Sequences, and Surprising Changes
Nearly 20 years after Mean Girls became a global phenomenon, a new twist of the film has hit theaters in a film adaptation of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical. When Cady Heron finds herself mixed up with the popular girls known as The Plastics at her new high school, she joins forces with outcasts Janis and Damian to take her down… or maybe become her. Pop Culture Planet’s Kristen Maldonado spoke with Angourie Rice, Bebe Wood, and directors Arturo Perez Jr and Samantha Jayne about bringing this new musical adaptation to life, favorite moments, surprising changes, and that insane cameo (if you know you know!). Spoilers ahead for the new Mean Girls.
After being together for about 10 years, Arturo Perez Jr and Samantha Jayne joked they “only know how to work with each other.” “We have a shorthand and we know each other’s strengths. It was really fun to be able to have someone you love and trust to be able to bounce ideas off of and create new ideas with,” said Jayne, sharing that they created a 200 page documentary called Camp Fetch to track everything shot for shot. They even filmed it all on an iPhone playing all the roles. “Somewhere there exists the whole movie on an iPhone with Sam playing most of the parts,” said Perez Jr. “I played Karen a lot, which is very entertaining.”
The cast is full of rising young stars from Broadway, young adult television, and pop music including The Summer I Turned Pretty’s Christopher Briney, A Strange Loop’s Jaquel Spivey, and Moana star Auli’i Cravalho who were handpicked to join the cast. Angourie Rice, who plays new girl Cady Heron, is best known for her roles in the recent Spider-Man iteration, Mare of Easttown, and Honor Society — and Tina Fey reached out to her herself over email offering her the role. “It felt incredible. I was so overwhelmed and excited that [Tina] would take the time to to reach out to me in that way because she's a very busy lady. It meant a lot that she had thought of me for the role of Cady,” Rice told me. “It was very intimidating to begin with because it was my first movie musical. I had sung before in other movies, but never to this extent. I was nervous, but I went in doing a lot of vocal lessons. Like really preparing, making sure that I felt ready.”
Bebe Wood, who plays Gretchen Wieners, felt such an “honor to be a part of this” cast. “It was incredible to come into to a project like this. I grew up with Mean Girls. it's important to me on a personal level,” she said. “It's so relevant pop culturally.”
And it remains a pop culture phenomenon thanks to Tina Fey who wrote the original Mean Girls film from 2004. She then went on to write the script for the Broadway production and returned to write the script for this new amalgamation of the two projects. There was “a lot of conversations and collaborations with Tina” and the directors to find the right mixture between the projects and bringing something new to the screen. “We're fans of the original and of the Broadway show, so, as a fan, I knew what I would really miss if it wasn't in there and what I really wanted to see. We tried to incorporate all the iconic moments and lines that people know and love, but this is a brand new cast. They bring themselves to it. This is like a brand new iteration of it. It's set in modern day with social media, it's bound to be new with music,” said Jayne, with Perez Jr. adding: “Then we just tried to like make sure that we kept it surprising. That was the Goliath in front of us. How do we strike that balance and then make sure that it is it’s own thing.”
This allowed for them to take certain characters and relationships to the next level. For instance, viewers learn that Tim Meadows’ characters Mr Duval and Fey’s character Ms Norbury are a couple in this version. “That was all Tina!,” exclaimed Jayne. “When she showed us the pages on that, I literally screamed. I was so happy.” At the end of the film, we even see Gretchen finally move on from Jason to dance with… Kevin G! “I think that is the trajectory,” Wood told me. “We wanted to like throw something fun in there and I'm happy you caught that. In my head, they definitely like end up getting married or something.”
Of course, with an adaptation of the Broadway music that means epic musical numbers. While they couldn’t include every single song, they picked the “musical sequences that are pertinent to the narrative.” “We wish we could have kept all of [the songs]. There were some tears that were shed. It was hard to let some go,” revealed Jayne, sharing they had to keep things moving for the young audience. “The music team did a beautiful job updating the palette of the songs to be a more pop palette.”
Perez Jr explained that the goal with the direction of the musical numbers was to make it feel like “we’re walking in [the character’s] shoes and therefore can understand [them] a little bit more.” “‘Sexy’ was just so much fun. It exists in the virtual world at first and then in that party. Avantika, she nails it. From her first audition, we were absolutely obsessed with her. She really made that shine,” said Jayne of her favorite musical number. Meanwhile Perez Jr’s favorite sequences often featured Janis. “‘I'd Rather Be Me.’ Janis is so raw. She's like, ‘This is my song. Roll the f-ing camera. Don't you cut… don't you dare cut. Let’s go you!’” he shared animatedly and gave shout outs to “World Burn” and the dreamy hallway they created for “Revenge Party.” “Creating that hallway within the school was so much fun. We loved it so much that on breaks people would just be eating lunch in the grass there, enjoying the space.”
Rice and Wood both shared their love for the winter talent show dance to “Rockin’ Around The Pole” when the girls perform in sparkly Santa outfits. “I loved that one because it was our first week of filming so we were all still getting to know each other. That was definitely a good bonding experience to all be wearing itchy sequins and big boots,” shared Rice, while Wood added that she loved shooting Gretchen’s musical number “What’s Wrong With Me” and getting a chance to feature her Cuban roots. “I was really excited by that prospect. I've never been able to play Cuban American before. I'm obviously very white and I don't think Hollywood necessarily knows that like Caribbean people and Latino people in general come in all different like shades and hair colors. Encanto has such representation on that spectrum. so it's cool that more and more I'm seeing that, but I wanted to incorporate something and and our directors were totally open to that. It felt natural to just say abuelito instead of grandfather so it was really cool.”
The North Shore High students that make up the ensemble almost feel like a character in themselves. They bring so much life and energy to the scenes. “I gotta give a shout out to the dancers and to the band freaks and choir girls. The Greek chorus that brought us through everything. They get to talk a lot in the original […] and we were like, how can we raise up the ensemble? We brought in some of the world’s best dancers and they just killed it. They’re amazing and stars in their own right,” said Perez Jr, with Jayne adding: “Our actors really embodied the roles so personally and they really put their own twist on them. Nobody was trying to replicate anything. Everyone just came to set so positive with so many ideas. I know their performances will resonate.”
And speaking of the original, this film features exciting cameos including Ashley Park who originated the role of Gretchen on Broadway, Jon Hamm as Coach Carr, The Office’s Jenna Fischer as Cady’s mom, Busy Philipps as Regina’s cool mom, and, in a shocking reveal, Lindsay Lohan herself as the Mathletes Championship moderator. That’s right, the original Cady Heron herself! “It was amazing to work with Lindsay,” gushed Rice. “She is such a professional. She is so experienced and and just so kind as well. So kind that she took the time to be there, that she cares about this character and this story so much. It meant so much to me that that I got to meet her because that's such a rare experience.”
Meanwhile Jayne reflected on getting to direct the Mean GIrls icon. “It was an out of body experience because I love her so much. She was unbelievably kind and giving and just an absolute joy to work with and incredibly sweet with the cast. It was a dream,” she said. “Even offering her suggestions was a dream and her listening to us and our suggestions. I had to pinch myself.”
Catch Mean Girls in theaters now and play the soundtrack on repeat on your favorite music listening platforms.
