17 Facts About The Original "Mean Girls" Movie That Any True Fan Should Know

Amanda Seyfried is iconic for playing Karen, but the role could've gone to Blake Lively.

The new Mean Girls film is a hit at the box office. So to celebrate the latest part of the franchise, here are facts about the original Mean Girls film from 2004 that might take you by surprise:

🚨 Warning: This post contains major spoilers. 🚨

1. Lindsay Lohan initially wanted to play Regina.

Paramount / courtesy Everett Collection

"I wanted to play Regina because I'd just come off of Freaky Friday, and I really wanted to play a pretty normal girl now. I wanted to have a different kind of role than just the damaged teenager again. Mark Waters, the director, was insistent that I play Cady, and so was Tina. They were like, 'No, no, no. You're the lovable one. You have to play Cady,'" Lindsay Lohan told Vogue in 2022. "So I was so eager to get into the transitional part of, OK, let's get to the pretty part of Cady."

2. Similarly, Rachel McAdams, who played Regina, first auditioned to play Cady.

Paramount / courtesy Everett Collection

"I remember watching her do the scene,” director Mark Waters told Vulture in 2014 of Rachel's audition for Cady. “And after it was over, I told her, ‘I think you’re a movie star, but you’re way too old for this character. You just aren’t going to be able to play the ingenue.’" 

3. Fortunately, according to Mark Waters, Rachel may have gotten the role of Regina because she reportedly made Lindsay "nervous."

Paramount / courtesy Everett Collection

“When Lindsay was acting with Rachel, she got very shy, because Rachel was older and a very accomplished actress,” Mark also told Vulture. “She’d come in the room and not talk to Lindsay — she was very focused. Lindsay kind of got nervous around her, and I thought that, more than anything, was going to be the deciding factor, the fact that she affected Lindsay in that way.”

4. Rajiv Surendra, who played Kevin G, auditioned for Damian.

Paramount / courtesy Everett Collection

"I auditioned for the part of Damian first. I didn’t hear back for Damian, but then they called me in for Kevin — a part that was originally written for an Asian person. So I went and auditioned for the casting director, and I just could not remember that rap. I kept screwing it up. So I think after about the third try I just said to them, 'Looks like that’s the best I can do!' [laughs] I left and thought, 'Well, I blew that one.' And surprisingly, they called me back," he told Entertainment Weekly in 2014.

5. Mean Girls was Amanda Seyfried's first movie.

Paramount / courtesy Everett Collection

“I was just glad to be working as an actor, getting paid to speak actual dialogue — as opposed to being in the background," she said in a conversation for Variety in 2021.

6. In an alternate world, though, Blake Lively would've played Amanda's character, Karen.

Vera Anderson / WireImage / Getty Images, Paramount / courtesy Everett Collection

"I'd first auditioned for Regina, and I'd flown out to LA for the first time with my mother. It was very exciting. I met Lacey Chabert for the first time, and Lindsay Lohan was in the room, and Blake Lively was playing Karen, and then I was Regina," Amanda told Vanity Fair last year. "I flew home, and they were like, 'You know what? We think you're more correct for Karen.' So I was like, 'Oh God, OK, sure.'"

7. The word "fetch," which Gretchen (Lacey Chabert) tries to popularize, is supposed to be short for the word "fetching."

Paramount / YouTube / Via youtube.com

"I did some research, and I sat down with some neighborhood teens. I was asking them about slang, and I started thinking, 'Oh, whatever I put in the movie now, by the time the movie gets made, it'll be over.' So we'll just make up something fake," writer of the film Tina Fey told Katie Couric in 2020. "Fetch is short for the word 'fetching' [or] appealing, so I just made it up."

8. Regina's dig to Cady, "So you agree? You think you're really pretty?" was inspired by an experience Tina Fey actually had as a teenager.

Paramount / courtesy Everett Collection

"That happened to me once. I got flat out busted when I was a freshman," Tina told IGN in 2004.

9. Jonathan Bennett, who played Aaron Samuels, didn't read the full script until he was on his way to shoot the movie.

Paramount / courtesy Everett Collection

"The first time I actually read the full script was when I was on the plane flying to Toronto to shoot it. I was excited to book the job regardless, but once I finished the whole thing, that’s when I realized the true brilliance of Tina Fey’s writing," he told Entertainment Weekly in 2014.

10. Tim Meadows hurt his hand before filming, so they wrote his character Principal Duvall's cast into the script.

Paramount / courtesy Everett Collection

"I had to call Tina before we started production and tell her that I'd hurt my hand and that if she wanted to write me out of the movie that I would understand," Tim Meadows told Katie Couric. "She was like, 'No, we already put you in it. I wrote it with you in mind, so I want you to do it.' So she wrote in the part about the carpal tunnel syndrome."

11. Lindsay Lohan, who was 17 when joining the movie, had to take high school classes on set.

Paramount / courtesy Everett Collection

"I used to get so angry when I had to go, because I wanted to hang with everyone," she told Amanda Seyfriend during a conversation for Interview in 2022.

12. Rachel McAdams's Juicy Couture tracksuit in the film was stuffed with toilet paper.

Paramount / courtesy Everett Collection

"We built a fat suit for the character. The costumer designer built it and stuffed it with all these little beads and stuff. I remember coming out for the scene, and it was in the cafeteria. So Mark [Waters, the director] comes up to me, and he's like, '[We] need you to be much more voluptuous,'" Rachel told Katie Couric. "We just went into the bathroom off [of] the cafeteria and just started stuffing my Juicy Couture tracksuit with so much toilet paper."

13. The costume designer intentionally dressed The Plastics...in plastic.

Paramount / courtesy Everett Collection

"I really wanted to use plastic," costume designer Mary Jane Fort told Vanity Fair in 2019 of the "Jingle Bell Rock" costumes. "So, again, their skirts are made of plastic."

14. In the story, the necklace Cady wears during her house party is supposed to be repurposed from the African bracelet she wears early in the movie.

Paramount / courtesy Everett Collection

"She wanted a necklace, Cady did, and didn't really have anything, so [the necklace is] something she had left over," Mary Jane Fort also told Vanity Fair. "It's a leather strap that she pulled off of one of her bracelets. She took something from her past life and adapted it from her African days."

15. Cady's skirt was supposed to look like "tissue paper coming out of a paper bag" when she fell into the trash can.

Paramount / courtesy Everett Collection

"One of the things always when there's a stunt involved is how can it look and be the way that the costume and the character would want it to be, and then how can it work for the stunt? So I needed and wanted something that when she's sticking out of the trash can [is] almost like tissue paper coming out of a paper bag," Mary Jane Fort also told Vanity Fair. "So that's what I was thinking of when I designed this costume."  

16. Damian almost didn't sing "Beautiful" by Christina Aguilera at the talent show because of trouble getting the songwriter's approval.

Paramount / YouTube / Via youtube.com

"So Tina gave me a list of other songs that were like [Whitney Houston’s] 'One Moment in Time' to choose from to sing, but I was like, 'Ooh, but I really want to [sing ‘Beautiful’] because I want to do the 'Don’t look at me!' thing.' Because that was an idea I had because I had listened to the album and Christina says that on the album. So I asked, 'Can I say 'Don’t look at me,' and then look away at the piano?' and Tina Fey was like, 'YES! Of course!' So then they [re-asked] the writer, Linda Perry, and because my character was gay, they allowed me to sing it, which was really cool, because that’s the type of people that song was written for," Daniel Franzese told Entertainment Weekly in 2014.

17. Finally, Glen Coco, as mentioned in Damian's line "You go, Glen Coco," is a real person. He's a childhood friend of Tina Fey's brother.

Paramount / YouTube / Via youtube.com

“My friends and family all get a kick out of it. It’s just the name that gets recognized, not me,” the real Glen Coco told Yahoo earlier this month. “I’ve never even been able to get a restaurant reservation because of it.”