Mean Girls Star Jaquel Spivey Talks “Revenge Party” and “Apex Predator”

The new Mean Girls movie is now available digitally, which means fans of the film can finally sing along to the musical numbers. The new movie is based on the Broadway musical that was based on the 2004 film that was based on the book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman. There’s been a lot of talk about the songs in the films, and ComicBook.com recently learned some fun behind-the-scenes stories about the musical numbers. While chatting with directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr., we learned that “Revenge Party” almost featured a very cool prop. During another chat with Jaquel Spivey (Damian Hubbard), we learned some interesting things about “Apex Predator.”

“I will say for me, as one of the musical theater babies of this cast, ‘Revenge Party’ was also my favorite because it is so theatrical,” Spivey shared. “And of course, I love the idea of making musical numbers suitable for the screen and for a movie audience, but to me it’s something about that musical magic that really will translate no matter what medium it’s on. So for me, it’s like we’re wearing crazy costumes, crazy makeup, and also just our phenomenal dancers. I loved being in any scene or musical number where the dancers were doing their thing and just watching them and we were all together, us, the dancers, background, everybody was on set for hours to make that number happen.”

“But I would say the one that probably surprised me was ‘Apex Predator,’ because I did not expect for the animal kingdom to look as cool as it did on screen. I was there when they told the background actors, ‘I need you to be animals,’ and they were not prepared for that. So they’re like, ‘What you mean animals? What you talking about?’ And they were like, ‘We need you to be animals, do it.’ As soon as they said action, just seeing all these people just come up with stuff, I don’t know, it was just really cool, and it was nice to watch the editing and everything was really cool.”

Jaquel Spivey Talks Going From Broadway To Film:

Mean Girls marked Spivey’s first film role, which he took shortly after being nominated for a Tony for his Broadway debut in A Strange Loop. During his chat with ComicBook.com, Spivey opened up about his unexpected transition from stage to screen.

“Well, it was a scary transition, but even more so on the fact that I didn’t train in acting for the camera. I always thought the stage was going to be my home, that’s where I’ll do most of my work,” Spivey explained. “I did not expect a movie, too. This was one of those dreams that wasn’t even on my vision board. So when the time came around I was like, ‘Are you all sure?’”

“But I think it was nice to be able to stretch in an environment that allowed me to fail, that allowed me to succeed, that allowed me to ask questions. So, for it to be a project called Mean Girls, it was nice to be around nice people who took care of me and made sure I understood what was happening.” 

You can watch our interview with Jaquel Spivey at the top of the page.