Trivia / Mean Girls

The 2004 Film

• Ability over Appearance: Lizzy Caplan almost didn't get cast, as the producers thought she was too pretty to play Janis. As such they gave her a more goth/alternative look rather than trying to dress her down.
• Actor-Shared Background: Betsy Heron gets offered tenure at Northwestern. Her actress Ana Gasteyer's alma mater is Northwestern.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: Gretchen's line "Oh my god, Karen, you can't just ask people why they're white" is often misquoted as "You can't just ask someone why they're white."
• Billing Displacement:
  • Alongside Lindsay Lohan, the only other actor to be credited on the poster is Tina Fey, who plays the supporting role of a teacher — hardly a second lead or even a key member of the ensemble. (She also wrote the film, but writing credits and acting credits are entirely different beasts.)
  • Another SNL alum, Ana Gasteyer, who plays the minor role of Cady's mother, is also credited before Lacey Chabert and Amanda Seyfried, two of the protagonists.
  • When a Mean Girls game was announced for the Nintendo DS in 2009 (it was most likely cancelled at the last minute, at least in America), Lindsay Lohan, the film's star, wasn't on the cover. The tabloids had a field day with this.
• California Doubling: As Roger Ebert put it, "She enrolls in Evanston Township High School — which, like all American high schools in the movies, is physically located in Toronto."
• Completely Different Title:
  • Germany: Girls' Club: Be Careful!
  • Canada: Nasty Teens
  • France: Lolita in Spite of Me
  • Latvia: Nasty
  • Portugal: Cute and Terrible
  • Taiwan: Hot Girl Tricks
  • Ukraine: Cool Girls
  • Vietnam: Supergirls
• Cast the Runner-Up:
  • Lindsay Lohan originally auditioned for Regina, while Rachel McAdams originally auditioned for Cady. Lohan was cast as Cady instead after Freaky Friday (2003) became a Star-Making Role for her, with the producers afraid that playing a villain would hurt her wholesome image, leaving the Regina role open for McAdams.
  • McAdams' main competition for the part of Regina, meanwhile, was Amanda Seyfried, who ultimately played Karen.
• Contractual Purity: The film's R-rated content was toned down when Lindsay Lohan was cast, as she was considered too family-friendly for such a raunchy film at the time. Likewise Lohan opted to play Cady rather than Regina, worrying about hurting her 'good girl' image.
• Corpsing: When Karen says, "My breasts can always tell when it's gonna rain." Lindsay Lohan is clearly cracking a smile.
• Dawson Casting: Regina George is played by Rachel McAdams, who was 24-25 at the time of filming. Also, Lacey Chabert and Lizzy Caplan were both 21 when the film was made. Amanda Seyfried was only a couple of years older than her character; she was 18 during filming and had only just graduated from high school. Lindsay Lohan was the closest to her character's age; she was 17, only a year older than 16-year-old Cady, when filming took place in 2003.
• Deleted Scene:
  • Cady tries to give Regina a Wardrobe Wound by having a friend rig her cafeteria table so that it tips and spills food into her lap when she sits down. However, Karen sits where Regina was supposed to, thus becoming the prank's victim.
  • Cady rigs the weighing scales to fool Regina into think she's lost weight.
  • An extended version of Cady at Aaron's house where it's revealed it's only him and his mother.
  • An Imagine Spot during the assembly where Cady imagines that Ms. Norbury says "your parents have been eaten by cannibals!"
  • A longer version of the scene with well-wishers at Regina's bed. Her mother tells the congregation that Regina lost so much weight from being immobile that the doctors recommended Kalteen Bars. Regina gives a Big "NO!" and the army of people rush outside just as Cady comes to the door. She throws the bouquet of flowers inside as she's swept away by the crowd.
  • Just before going into the Spring Fling, Cady bumps into Regina in the bathroom. Regina says she's over the whole thing.
• Edited for Syndication:
  • On most TV airings, Regina's "Motherf--" when she finds out the truth about the Kalteen bars is edited out.
  • On some TV airings, the "Nigga, please." subtitle is changed to "Girlfriend, please." In some versions on TV and streaming, there are no subtitles at all during the Vietnamese bits. On the free version on YouTube, the subtitles are not present on the picture, but the subtitled text appears in the closed captioning, which forces itself on during those bits.
• Fake American: Rachel McAdams, who plays Regina, is Canadian.
• Fake Nationality: Lizzy Caplan is of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, but Janis describes herself late in the film as Lebanese.
• Funny Character, Boring Actor: Inverted. Aaron Samuels was the Big Man on Campus, Pretty Boy and Satellite Love Interest. In real life, Jonathan Bennett was just as dorky and Camp Gay as Damian. Bennett himself considered Aaron to be very different from he was in high school during an interview with The Today Show.
• Market-Based Title: Is known as "Girls Club - Vorsicht bissig!" in Germany, where it's also pretty popular. The subtitle is a reference to warning signs denoting the presence of dangerous animals (usually dogs) in an enclosed area and roughly translates to "Caution, bites!"
• Orphaned Reference:
  • Regina is seen checking herself on the weighing scales and saying "excellent" after she starts eating the Kalteen bars. This is explained in a longer version of that scene, where Cady rigs the scales to make Regina think she's lost weight.
  • Regina is shocked when Gretchen is nominated for Spring Fling Queen and says to Cady, "She's not pretty." This is left over from when Gretchen was originally written to be an unattractive girl who was only in the Plastics because she was rich, but this was changed. It seems to be only Regina who views Gretchen as unattractive.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Neil Flynn, who was at this time well known as the sarcastic smartass Janitor on Scrubs plays Cady's loving, caring, affectionate and utterly clueless father.
  • Retroactively for Amanda Seyfried, who eventually became known for playing wholesome Girl Next Door types. Playing a Brainless Beauty who makes out with her first cousin is a tad different. She was nearly cast as Cady, which would have been within her eventual type.
  • Another retroactive example is Rachel McAdams, who generally plays kindhearted, down-to-earth characters, so it's a bit funny that one of her most well-known roles is that of a narcissistic Alpha Bitch.
  • Director example: Mark Waters usually has supernatural elements in his films. There are none in this.
  • Claire Holt was best known on Australian TV as the bossy, responsible Emma on H₂O: Just Add Water - making a Really Gets Around character like Chastity quite different.
• Production Posse: The movie was produced by Saturday Night Live co-creator and producer Lorne Michaels, and written by Tina Fey, who plays a supporting part, and also includes her SNL castmates Ana Gasteyer and Tim Meadows. She's also best friends with Amy Poehler, who plays Regina's mom.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor: Daniel Franzese who played "too gay to function" Damian is gay, though he only came out in 2014.
• Referenced by...:
  • The movie is frequently mentioned in The Most Popular Girls in School, in which the characters (who are also a Girl Posse) look up to the characters.
    Shay Van Buren: Gotta say, no one ever blew up a car in The Breakfast Club. ...Or in Mean Girls.
  • In the Family Guy Fanon episode "Meg Girls", the title and main plot of this episode is a parody of the movie.
  • In the Ma Fille chapter "Scary Movie", Super Macho Man calls Heathers "80s Mean Girls". Made a bit humorous when you consider that the director of Mean Girls (Mark Waters) is the brother of the writer of Heathers (Daniel Waters).
  • Mean Girls is one of the many films homaged in Ariana Grande's "thank u, next" music video. Grande fills the role of Regina in the scenes referencing the film, even casting Jonathan Bennett to "reprise" his role as Aaron when they recreate the scene where the Plastics swan through the hallway.
• Star-Making Role: At the time of its initial release, it was considered to be this for Lindsay Lohan. In the longer run, however, Tina Fey was the one whose career really took off as a result of this film. It was also Amanda Seyfried's first role in a feature film (before, she'd been a Soap Opera actress on As the World Turns), while Rachel McAdams scored a twofer with this and The Notebook two months later. As for Lohan, Mean Girls is about the only thing people remember her for, outside of the spectacular meltdown of her career and personal life in the following years.
• Technology Marches On: This was made in 2004, long before social media was popular (MySpace had just debuted, and Facebook didn't exist). Instead of having a physical "Burn Book", the Plastics would have likely used private social media pages to talk smack about their classmates.
• Underage Casting: Amy Poehler, who plays Regina/McAdams' mother despite being only 7 years older than her and 32 at the time of filming.
• What Could Have Been:
  • In the original script, Gretchen was envisaged as plain-to-ugly (with a "sniveling whiny face") and part of the in-crowd solely for her wealth. Obviously, this was dropped when the very pretty Lacey Chabert was cast in the role, but traces of the original perception of the character can still be seen in the film in Regina's obvious surprise that Gretchen was nominated for Spring Fling Queen.
  • The film was a lot filthier before it was PG-13ified. See Bowdlerization on the main page. Related to this is the reason why Mary Elizabeth Winstead passed up an audition for the film: her mother, who was closely involved in her career at the time, felt that the script was too raunchy.
  • Ashley Tisdale auditioned for Karen, while James Franco auditioned for Aaron. A popular rumor claims that Scarlett Johansson also auditioned for Karen, and that she even did a line reading for the part, but this was debunked by Mark Waters; he had actually tested her for The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, only for that film to fall into Development Hell for several years after Hurricane Katrina (it was to be shot in New Orleans).
  • According to Amanda Seyfried she had been brought in to play Regina with Blake Lively as Karen. Both were brought in for readthroughs with Lindsay Lohan as Cady and Lacey Chabert as Gretchen. Seyfried was thought to be a better fit for Karen and Rachel McAdams was brought in as Regina
  • Tina Fey was approached about sequels for years and refused to do them. When the actual sequel came out — and was met with Sequelitis reactions — she said she regretted not writing one.
• Word of Dante: In an article for Entertainment Weekly, the actresses were asked about what they imagined their characters doing a decade later.
  Karen: Manage or own a store that sells really cool dog attire, like Swarovski dog collars and Halloween costumes for animals.
  Cady: In Africa with Oprah working at children’s schools with family, teaching girls to be nice.
  Gretchen: Running the Toaster Strudel Empire. She has curly hair and worked everything out with Jason.
  Regina: She’s a Real Housewife and has found all her other Reginas.
• Written by Cast Member: Tina Fey wrote the screenplay and stars as Ms. Norbury.
• Written-In Infirmity: Principal Duvall's carpal tunnel is because Tim Meadows had broken his wrist. On the commentary everyone has a laugh about how it apparently lasts the entire school year.

The 2018 Musical

• Acting for Two:
  • Or rather, three; Ms. Norbury, Mrs. George, and Mrs. Heron are all played by the same actor.
  • Three members of the student ensemble also play Mr. Buck, Coach Carr, and the French teacher during the class montage.
• Approval of God: Or "Approval of the Mother of God": When Kerry Butler in The Musical played Ms. Norbury on stage, Tina Fey's mother told her that Kerry has Tina down! (Not to mention a few people thought Kerry's portrayal was such they actually thought it WAS Tina on stage!)
• Creator Couple: Tina Fey and Jeff Richmond, who wrote the book and music respectively, are married.
• Cut Song: “Wildlife” (in place of "It Roars"),“Bossed Up” (in place of "Stop"), and “Here” (in place of "I See Stars").
• Dawson Casting: The Musical plays it straight as their actors are all in their 20s at least.
• He Also Did: She Also Did: Tee Boyich, who is the "super swing" that understudies Erika Henningsen (Cady), Ashley Park (Gretchen), Kerry Butler (Mrs. Heron/Mrs. George/Ms. Norbury) and Barrett Wilbert Weed (Janis) earlier got viral prominence as the woman who sang the opening part the early theme of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and known for the chorus "Unbreakable! They alive, dammit!" In this clip at the 3:00 mark, she's singing with Kyle Selig (Aaron) the part that got her early prominence (and he goes, "That's actually her.").
• Romance on the Set: Erika Henningsen and Kyle Selvig started dating. The two married in May 2023.
• Self-Adaptation: Tina Fey wrote the movie and the book for the musical.
• What Could Have Been: Sabrina Carpenter was supposed to take over as Cady for an extended run of the musical, but then the COVID-19 Pandemic took place, eventually causing the show to close permanently.

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