Mean Girls is back, and it's ready to introduce the iconic story to a whole new audience — with a twist.
The 2024 film has all the iconic moments of the original film, with a sprinkle of Gen Z humour, and yes, it is indeed a musical and incorporates elements of the smash Broadway show Mean Girls: The Musical. With the new film comes a fresh-faced cast of up-and-comers — like Aussie actress Angourie Rice and The Summer I Turned Pretty's Chris Briney, and if the new Mean Girls hits like the original did, they're about to become household names. But don't worry, Tina Fey's still Mrs Norbury.
If the film's plot feels like a distant memory, here's the rundown. Recent transfer student Cady Heron navigates her way through the social ecosystem of North Shore High School.
After getting the lay of the land from 'outcasts' Janice 'Imi'ike and Damien Hubbard, Cady is taken in by "The Plastics" — the titular mean girls, if you will. Soon, Cady finds herself falling for the ex-boyfriend of Queen Bee Regina George, and is soon swept up in an intricate revenge plot.
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Ahead of the film's theatrical release, we sat down with the cast — Reneé Rapp, Angourie Rice, Auli'i Cravalho, Christopher Briney, Jaquel Spivey, Avantika and Bebe Wood — with a very important question: "Would you rather go to high school in the 2000s or now?"
While Briney took a beat to consider his options, Rapp was decisive. "Well, I'm gay," she said. "So I'm gonna go with now."
Rapp's co-star, Angourie Rice, said that there were positives and negatives to growing up in both eras, but noted that "now, there's a lot more acceptance for people to be who they want to be in high school".
Meanwhile, 19-year-old Avantika, who plays Karen Shetty in Mean Girls 2024, also said that she would rather attend high school now, because she suspects she "would've been bullied more than [she] was" if she'd gone to high school in the 2000s. "I don't think it would have been my vibe," she added.
Since landing the role in Mean Girls, Avantika — who is proudly Indian-American — has received multiple hate comments about her casting choice. On social media, the actress demonstrated her IDGAF attitude by collating screenshots of the hate comments and posting them to her Instagram grid.
Tony Award nominee Jaquel Spivey, who plays Damien Hubbard in Mean Girls, also leaned more towards the idea of going to high school now. Why?
"The access I would have to be able to cheat," Spivey said. "I could pull my phone out and do what I gotta do." Sitting a seat away from him, Spivey's co-star Auli'i Cravalho could barely contain her shock.
Her shock aside, Cravalho also said she'd rather attend high school now, mostly because she couldn't imagine attending school without the internet and the social aspect that comes along with it.
