Mean Girls is a film that has dominated pop culture since its release in 2004. It’s a rare example of a film that has not only stayed relevant, but cemented itself in history with memes, quotes, and entire days devoted to the beloved teen comedy. In 2018, Mean Girls The Musical made its Broadway debut, and come January 2024, the film adaptation of the musical is set to bring things full circle, as the film adaptation of the musical hits cinemas. Playing Cady Heron, the role the cemented Lindsay Lohan as one of the biggest stars of the 2000s, is Australian actor Angourie Rice.
Chatting to The Latch over Zoom, Rice says she was a “huge fan” of the original film growing up.
“I owned it on DVD, I watched it over and over again,” she says. “It was such a part of my childhood, and also a part of my adolescence — at sleepovers we would rewatch it, you know, we would say, ‘Let’s get together and watch Mean Girls again!’.”
Of course, being a huge Mean Girls fan also meant that Rice questioned what the new film would add to the franchise. Ahead, read her thoughts on Mean Girls 2024, the responsibility to do Cady Heron justice, and why Mean Girls makes for a perfect musical.
Mean Girls Trailer
Angourie Rice Also Questioned the Need for a New Mean Girls
Looking at the comments on the trailer for Mean Girls 2024 will give you an indication of how protective fans are of the original film.
“No Mean Girls movie can replace … Mean Girls 2004. It was, is, and will be a classic. Period,” one commenter wrote.
“If I wanted to watch Mean Girls again, I would just watch Mean Girls. It still holds up,” said another.
Asked what she would say to the people who question whether we need another Mean Girls film, Rice says she gets it.
“I think it’s a fair question, because that is also the question I asked when I received the script,” she says.
In the end, it was Tina Fey — who wrote both the 2004 and 2024 scripts — who convinced her that it was a story worth revisiting.
“Tina spoke to me about it, and she was like, ‘Well, the movie has had such a life beyond what it originally was’,” Rice says. “I trusted her, because it’s her story, it’s her characters, I just trusted that it is going to be something that is new and interesting and magical, and it’s going to bring something exciting.”
She continues: “People are always going to say what they want to say, but like, you know! I can just let that go! I’m glad I did it, I think it’s going to be really fun, and I think, I hope, a lot of people are going to love it.”
As for what we can expect, Rice says the new film is “a really interesting and exciting hybrid of the 2004 movie, the Broadway musical, and something new, and interesting, and fresh”.
“It’s really a theatrical experience and it has some amazing musical moments in it, and it also stays true to the honesty of what it’s like to go through high school and be faced with this hierarchy,” she says. “And all those iconic things that you love from the first movie, they’re still in there!”
The Responsibility Angourie Felt to do Cady Heron Justice
While Lindsay Lohan had already starred in The Parent Trap and Freaky Friday by the time she took on the role of Cady Heron, it was 2004’s Mean Girls that made her one of the biggest stars of her generation.
To step into the role for the 2024 film, Rice says she “definitely” felt a sense of pressure to do the role justice.
“Or maybe like, a sense of responsibility is another way to frame it,” she says, “because it’s such a big part of people’s experience growing up.”
“It’s also such a big part of who I am and my experience, so it’s a responsibility to myself, as well,” she adds. “So I definitely felt that, but ultimately … you just have to go into it and just release what other people are going to say, and just trust that if you’re proud of yourself, that’s the most important thing.”
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When it came time to prepare for the role, Rice says she approached it like any other. She spoke with the directors, Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr., as well as Tina Fey, and from there, “just trusted that it would just fall into place” and that she would be able to make Cady her own “just naturally”.
“Of course, there were some lines where I would say them and I’d go, ‘Oh gosh, that’s so similar to how Lindsay says it in the movie!’,” she concedes, “because that’s so in my brain, but yeah, ultimately, I just sort of went for it and trusted that it would be different.”
Why Mean Girls Makes for a Perfect Musical
Having never done a movie musical before, Rice says that taking on Mean Girls was “a different skill” for her to learn.
“We had a lot of prep time for the musical moments,” she says. “There’s a lot of going through the camera movements and understanding where everyone’s placed, because they’re big!”
As for what makes Mean Girls the perfect film to be adapted into a musical, Rice says it’s the same for any musical.
“What I love about musicals is that the characters sing the biggest moments in their lives,” she says. “I was actually listening to a podcast about musicals yesterday. Specifically about [Les Misérables], and the stakes in Les Mis are so high, and the stakes in Mean Girls feel so high!
Mean Girls, Rice says, is “full of those big emotions you have as a teenager”, which lends itself naturally to the musical format.
She continues: “Musicals give us this opportunity to live in a world where we can sing our emotions, and it gives us a vocabulary and a magical moment to let everything go, and I just love that! I think it’s so special; singing releases so many happy endorphins, and same with dancing!”
Mean Girls will hit HOYTS cinemas on January 11, 2024. Click here to book tickets.
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