Why Lindsay Lohan almost didn’t play Cady Heron in Mean Girls

Mean Girls just turned eighteen and it is hard to believe that the movie is that old, to begin with. What’s even harder to believe is that Lindsay Lohan, the star of the film alongside Rachel McAdams, almost didn’t play the title role of Cady Heron! Was there going to be a Mean Girls without Lindsay Lohan? Here’s what you need to know.

How Lindsay Lohan’s role in Mean Girls came to be

The pop-culture phenomenon that is Mean Girls came at a time right when teen movies were a hit at the movie theaters. Lohan had just come off playing Anna Coleman on Freaky Friday. The movie starred Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis as a mother-daughter duo who switch bodies after taking a fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant.

Because so, Lohan said in Vogue’s “Life in Looks” series that when it came time to film Mean Girls, she wanted to play a “normal” or different role.  “I wanted to play Regina, because I had just come off of Freaky Friday, and I really wanted to play a pretty, normal girl now,” she said. “I wanted to have a different kind of role than just the ‘damaged teenager’ again.”

While Regina George is the main antagonist of the film, her role is different from the outsider role Lohan played in Freaky Friday. Although Regina George (played by Rachel McAdams) was the school’s bully (leader of “The Plastics”), she portrayed it in a “queen bee” stereotype, always seen dressed up and coming from a wealthy background. This was different from any role Lohan had previously played. But according to Lohan, director Mark Waters and Tina Fey always saw her in the role of Cady Heron.

She said in the video: “Mark Waters, the director, was insistent that I played Cady and so was Tina [Fey]. They were like, ‘No, no, no you’re the lovable one, you have to play Cady.’ So I was so eager to get into the transitional part of, ‘OK, let’s get to the pretty part of Cady.’”

Are you a fan of the movie? Do you think Lindsay Lohan was perfect for the role? Sound off below!