NOTE: Major spoilers ahead for “Mean Girls”
Heading into the new musical adaptation of “Mean Girls,” just about every fan was hoping there would be an appearance from at least one star of the original film. And in the end, they got exactly what they wanted, from the home-schooled jungle freak herself.
After reuniting with some of the original Plastics for a Walmart ad campaign earlier this year, Lindsay Lohan, who played Cady Heron in the 2004 film, returned in the new film, now out in theaters everywhere. Fittingly, she appeared alongside Angourie Rice’s new Cady, as the moderator of the mathletes’ competition.
So, how did it all happen? Well, directors Arturo Perez Jr. and Samantha Jayne aren’t actually entirely sure. All they know for certain is that Tina Fey had something to do with it.
“I know they’ve kept a wonderful relationship, and then Lindsay magically appeared and made our lives so happy that day,” Jayne told TheWrap with a laugh. “It was so good.”
Perez noted that the invite was open for anyone who wanted to return, and that they had already begun shooting by the time they got the official “yes” from Lohan. Even Rice didn’t get much warning before the two were set to shoot together.
“I didn’t know that far in advance. There were, like, whisperings and rumblings, and I think it was so secret it was never put in an email,” Rice recalled to TheWrap. “It was just like, someone came up to me and was like, ‘Hey, by the way, we’ve got Lindsay, she’s gonna do it.’”
Once Lohan was onboard, the challenge then became what the scene would actually be.
“We knew that we wanted to make this scene its own musical sequence and it can be tough, right?” Jayne recalled. “Because you’re in the third act, and you’re asking an audience to sit through a math competition.”
“Good f—ing luck,” Perez added with a laugh.
The duo noted that they wanted everything to flow as naturally as possible — at least, considering the structure of a musical — and that it was important to them to include the “Greek chorus” of “the band freaks” and “the choir girls” established throughout the film.
“We’re like, OK, so if this really is Spring Fling, then what would be happening while this mathlete competition goes on? Well, yeah, the band freaks would be playing Spring Fling, so they’d be sound checking during the day,” Jayne explained. “They’d be like, ‘No, I gotta get in there and I gotta figure out the space. Like, I’m not just gonna show up and wing it.’”
In the end, that soundcheck is what unlocked the key to introducing Lohan’s moment. And indeed, they wanted her to have a whole moment.
“What if that kind of drum roll is what cues in Lindsay, and she can have her big reveal?” Jayne continued. “We knew we wanted to give her a big reveal moment, because she deserves it, my god!”
According to the directors, they were most nervous about having Lohan break the fourth wall.
“It’s not something that actors are accustomed to doing. It can throw anyone off guard, but she was not thrown off at all,” Jayne recalled. “She was just so down and trusting for what we wanted to do. So, in just explaining to her the flow of like, ‘OK, a camera comes in, would you look up, directly down the barrel, and deliver your line.’ She nailed it and it was powerful!”
Perez added that he particularly loved the back-and-forth shared between the two Cadys, admitting that it felt “like the passing of the baton, right there.” For Rice, that day of shooting was simply “surreal.”
“I heard her voice before I saw her, and I knew she was there immediately,” Rice recalled. “Her voice is so distinctive, so memorable. And so to meet her, it was just incredible. It meant so much to me that she took the time to do it, and that we got to play the same character! It’s a really rare experience to share that with someone and I feel very, very lucky that I got to meet her.”
“Mean Girls” is now in theaters everywhere.