Get In, Loser: Meet the ‘Mean Girls’ Movie-Musical Cast

On Fridays, we announce movie-musical casts. Shortly after new additions to the Wicked film were announced, four key players in the upcoming Mean Girls movie musical were reportedly unveiled. Angourie Rice, Reneé Rapp, Auli’i Cravalho, and Jaquel Spivey have joined the ensemble of Paramount’s film, adapted from Tina Fey’s Tony-nominated musical, which is based on her 2004 film, which itself was adapted from the nonfiction book Queen Bees and Wannabes. If the adaptation of an adaptation of an adaptation isn’t something to sing about, then we don’t know what is. 

Rice (Mare of Easttown) will play Cady, the recently homeschooled high school transplant played by Lindsay Lohan in the original movie. Cravalho (Moana) and Spivey (Broadway’s A Strange Loop) have been cast as outcast best friends Janis and Damian, who were played by Lizzy Caplan and Daniel Franzese, respectively. Then there is Rapp (The Sex Lives of College Girls), who is reprising her role as Plastics leader Regina George from the Broadway production. 

“I was excited. Man, I was excited,” 22-year-old Rapp told Entertainment Tonight of securing the role. “I was on the treadmill. I was at home and I was walking and I just finished a day of the College Girls filming and my agent called me.” As for what she’d say to Rachel McAdams, who originated the role on film, she quipped, “I love her. I love you, Mommy, in a respectful way.”

Lorne Michaels is set to produce the film alongside Fey, who is penning the script with music from Jeff Richmond and lyrics by Nell Benjamin. Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. will direct the adaptation for release on Paramount+. 

“I’m very excited to bring Mean Girls back to the big screen,” Fey, who wrote and starred in the film and then wrote the book for the Broadway musical, said in a statement back in 2020, when the project was announced. “It’s been incredibly gratifying to see how much the movie and the musical have meant to audiences. I’ve spent 16 years with these characters now. They are my Marvel Universe and I love them dearly.”