The plastics in Mean Girls almost looked a little different. Amanda Seyfried, who played Karen Smith in the 2004 film, originally auditioned for the role of Regina George, which eventually went to Rachel McAdams.
“I’d flown out to L.A. for the first time with my mother. It was very exciting,” Seyfried told Vanity Fair in a recent interview. “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.”
The Emmy-winning actress left the room thinking she’d get a call either telling her that she did or didn’t get the part of the Queen Bee, but instead, they had another offer for her, according to a report on www.hollywoodreporter.com.
“I flew home, and they were like, ‘We think you’re more correct for Karen,'” she said. “So I was like, ‘Oh god, OK, sure.'”
Mean Girls casting director Marci Liroff previously told Cosmopolitan UK that Lively was a top pick for the role of Karen. The Gossip Girl alum hadn’t done The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants yet.
“She came down to the final tests but, at some point, some of the filmmakers said to keep looking,” Liroff said. “Amanda Seyfried had read for Regina, and we really liked her, but then [film producer] Lorne [Michaels] suggested, ‘Why don’t we make her Karen?'”
In the Vanity Fair interview, Seyfried also praised her character for being so genuine and simply wanting to make people feel better.
“I think the reason we love Karen so much — and also the reason that she’s so funny — is that she is just being brutally honest, and it’s so beautiful, and it’s what makes her so endearing,” The Dropout star said. “And she’s not that smart, but she totally knows it. And everything that she reacts to is just her truth, her true reaction. And I think we all love people like that because we can trust them.”
The Emmy winner rewatched the scene from the movie in which Karen suggests to Regina that the plastics go to Taco Bell to help Regina feel better after she found out her boyfriend had been cheating on her. She later tells Lohan’s Cady Heron that she believes she has ESPN in her breasts, and that’s why they can tell when it’s already raining.
“She’s the person with the biggest heart,” Seyfried said. “She truly believes that the best idea would be to go to Taco Bell and that her secret is that she is psychic and has a sports channel. How could you not fall in love with somebody who fully believes that they have ESPN?”
