All the surprising celebrities who auditioned for Mean Girls but weren’t fetch enough

North Shore High School could have looked entirely different. The new book So Fetch: The Making of Mean Girls (And Why We’re Still So Obsessed With It) reveals all the celebrities who auditioned to play the lead roles in Mean Girls.

Rachel McAdams initially auditioned for Cady Heron, Lindsay Lohan was eager to play Regina George, the role of Regina nearly went to Amada Seyfried, and Karen was at once point going to be played by Blake Lively. The director Mark Waters swapped them round because he felt that Cady needed an air of naïvety and cluelessness, and Rachel McAdams was too old for that.

Hot take but I swear Karen is the least mean girl in the whole of Mean Girls
(Image via Netflix)

Literally everyone vaguely famous in the 2000s seems to have tried to land a role in Mean Girls. I’m amazed that Tom Cruise didn’t audition for Regina George.

Here are all the celebrities that auditioned for Mean Girls, and the roles that they were turned down for.

Blake Lively

Amanda Seyfried confirmed in an interview with Vanity Fair that Blake Lively was set to play Karen at one point. Amanda Seyfried originally flew to LA to audition for Regina George. She said: “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.

“I flew home and they were like… ‘We think you’re more correct for Karen.’ So I was like, ‘Oh god, OK, sure.’”

Leighton Meester

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In a trippy premonition of Gossip Girl, Leighton Meester battled it out with Blake Lively for the role of Karen Smith. The producers preferred Blake Lively in the role, though.

America Ferrera

No hate intended towards Lizzy Caplan but it’s a tragedy we’ll never know what America Ferrera’s take on Janis was
(Image from Barbie via Warner Bros.)

The director got really close to casting America Ferrera as Cady’s friend-turned-enemy-turned-friend-again Janis Ian, but eventually went with Lizzy Caplan instead.

Megan Fox

The Transformers star also auditioned for Karen Smith, but wasn’t in the running for very long. Maybe she forgot to wear pink on a Wednesday? Megan Fox went on to play Lindsay Lohan’s enemy in another high school comedy, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen.

Kate Mara

Kate Mara was one of the many 2000s celebrities who auditioned for Mean Girls. When the casting call went out for Mean Girls, Kate Mara already had some acting experience under her belt. She’d appeared as a teenager in Law & Order. Guess it’s easier to get auditions when your family founded the New York Giants. Her take on Karen Smith failed to wow the casting directors.

Ashley Tisdale

Ashley Tisdale (aka Sharpay from High School Musical and Maddie from The Suite Life of Zack & Cody) explained on Watch What Happens Live that she made it quite far through the casting process for Mean Girls. She auditioned for Gretchen Weiners, and also did screen tests for the role of Karen alongside Blake Lively. Ashely Tisdale made up a few lines during her audition for Karen that actually made it into the film.

Ashley Tisdale remembers screen testing for the original Mean Girls movie with Blake Lively and says one of her screen testing adlibs made the film! #WWHL pic.twitter.com/tmL40E6c8U

— Watch What Happens Live! (@BravoWWHL) March 6, 2024

She told Andy Cohen: “I just remember I ad-libbed — because I always like in an audition to steal the scene — and I ad-libbed one line, and they put it in the movie. And I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’

“I should have gotten a writer’s credit. I’m kidding, but I was like, ‘Dang.’”

Vanessa Hudgens

Mean Girls so easily could have been the High School Musical multiverse
(Image via Disney+)

Vanessa Hudgens (aka Gabrielle in High School Musical) also auditioned for Gretchen. As much as I love Lacey Chabert in Mean Girls, I also kind of thin that Vanessa Hudgens would have slayed?

Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is married to Ewan McGregor. There’s a fact you never needed to know
(Image of Birds of Prey via Prime)

The American actress was passed over for the role of Gretchen. I guess she wasn’t fetch enough. The casting director Marci Liroff reveals in the book that they struggled to find an actress for Gretchen because the character “has a specific timing in terms of comedy. And she’s this wannabe. It’s a fine line to play.”

Kat Dennings

Kat Denning’s character Darcy had a cameo in Wandavision
(Image via Disney+)

The actress is best known for playing the quirky and somewhat irritating scientist Darcy Lewis in the Marvel Cinematic Universe Thor films, and the quirky and somewhat irritating waitress Max in the sitcom 2 Broke Girls. It kind of makes sense that she auditioned for the quirky character Janis Ian, but didn’t get it.

Cole Williams

The book So Fetch: The Making of Mean Girls (And Why We’re Still So Obsessed With It) reveals that Marci Liroff really liked the actor Cole Williams and wanted him to play Damian Leigh, but Tina Fey and the other filmakers thought that he was too cool and handsome to play Damian convincingly. The role went to Daniel Franzese instead.

Related articles recommended by this author:

• Mean Girls: A cautionary tale about how not to make a film that tries to be everything at once
• 20 years on, these 15 Mean Girls production secrets and facts are still as fetch as the film
• This is the insane amount Lindsay Lohan got paid for her one-scene cameo in Mean Girls

Feature image credit: America Ferrera in Superstore via Netflix, Megan Fox in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen via Disney+, and Blake Lively and Leighton Meester in Gossip Girl via Netflix