Mean Girls Actress Rachel McAdams Is Down to Return for a Sequel

Rachel McAdams may be one of the only people ever to appear in a Marvel movie (Doctor Strange), who is more associated with another role -- namely, that of Regina George in the 2004 comedy Mean Girls. Serving as the primary antagonist to Linday Lohan's girl-next-door Cady Heron, McAdams was arguably the film's breakout star, going on to appear in The Notebook a couple of months later and then exploding in 2005 with Wedding Crashers, Red Eye, and The Family Stone. McAdams has had a varied career since, appearing in critical darlings and indie fare as well as big franchises like the Robert Downey, Jr.-starring Sherlock Holmes.

Still, Mean Girls -- which earned $130 million globally on a $17 million budget and helped make Tiny Fey a household name in the years just prior to the launch of 30 Rock -- has remained a role that sticks with not just McAdams but everyone involved with the movie, which was an immediate cult classic. The movie has achieved that status where even those who haven't seen it, know at least a handful of the jokes from ubiquitous internet memes.

"It would be fun to play Regina George later in her life and see where life took her," McAdams said during a Q&A session as part of the Heroes of Health: COVID-19 Stream-A-Thon.

McAdams isn't asked about the prospect of a sequel quite as often as Lindsay Lohan is, but the star has said on numerous occasions that she would love to make it happen in some form or another.

In Mean Girls, Lohan's Cady was a new girl at school who found herself singled out for harassment by the Plastics -- a clique often compared to the Heathers from Heathers. The film was partially based on Rosalind Wiseman's 2002 self-help book, Queen Bees and Wannabes, which dug into the sociology and psychology of high school cliques and the damaging impacts they can have on girls and young women.

There actually was a sequel to Mean Girls -- made in 2011 and released on ABC Family before heading to DVD. The film felt almost like a remake of the original, with different characters but basically the same personalities populating the high school -- which itself could be a commentary on cliques and high school life, if you wanted to take it that way. The only direct tie the film had to the original (besides calling the popular girls "Plastics") was Saturday Night Live veteran Tim Meadows, who reprised his role as Principal Ron Duvall. In 2018, there was a musical adaptation of the film.