The Beginnings
ROSALIND WISEMAN: People had called about turning it into a movie or a TV show, and I had no problem turning them down, because it was always something cheesy. They were trying to make it about me — “You're so inspirational!” Then Tina called. I didn't know who she was — I had a new baby, I had a book coming out. I wasn't watching “SNL.” But I knew it was important to her that it was not going to be stupid.
TINA FEY: Rosalind wanted the movie to be positive, and I remember promising her that that was the goal — to have a positive core.
WISEMAN: I've found a lot of success in my life by collaborating with women who are smart and funny, and Tina fit that category. From the time I said yes until the time it came out was about 18 months.
MARK WATERS: Our original title was “Homeschooled.” We were going to make it about someone who's been home-schooled their whole lives and then has to navigate high school. Then we came up with the Africa concept, which was a real boon because we could compare the kids' behavior to animals.
FEY: I revisited high school behaviors of my own — futile, poisonous, bitter behaviors that served no purpose. That thing of someone saying “You're really pretty” and then, when the other person thanks them, saying, “Oh, so you agree? You think you're pretty?” That happened in my school. That was a bear trap.
RACHEL McADAMS: At the heart of Regina George was a really angry kid who had no boundaries or guidance. Mark told me to listen to Courtney Love really loud, and to watch Alec Baldwin in “Glengarry Glen Ross.”
LACEY CHABERT, who played Gretchen: I related to the part in the movie where girls are cutting themselves down, like, “My hairline is weird” — stuff people would never notice on someone else. I was never the cool kid. I wore Minnie Mouse stuff. And growing up in Hollywood, I always felt under a microscope.
LIZZY CAPLAN: I think all girls that age are looking for their “thing.” I was fairly angsty in high school. I had my hair dyed black and was into Charles Bukowski. For the movie, I wanted to wear tons of layers and dark eye makeup. I cooked my hair, literally burned it with a flatiron to make it stick up straighter. Only now, 10 years later, has it recovered. Honestly, I had zero idea that people wouldn't find my look in that movie very cool and kinda s**y.
WATERS: I felt like I was Cady, even though I was a guy. In high school, I was a mathlete. But I also played basketball and tennis — not because I was interested in them, but because if you didn't play sports or have a cool car, you were a geek. I remember that feeling of, nothing's more important in the world than what's happening to me at lunch today.
A Phenomenon Is Born
McADAMS: [The success] was surprising to me because when you're making something, you kind of have no concept of it. But this was the script that made me call my manager halfway through and say, “I will play any part in this.” Tina hit a nerve about girl politics, but in a nonconfrontational way.
WISEMAN: I didn't know it was going to be a big movie. But the first time I saw Rachel in the rough cut, I could not believe how good she was. My mom was with me, and I remember turning to her and saying, “I can't believe how perfectly she got every mean girl I've ever worked with.”
CAPLAN: I was much more naïve about the business back then. I didn't know much about, say, what a good opening weekend for a teen comedy was. But when I found out they were studying the movie in sociology cla**es at universities; that felt pretty big.
DANIEL FRANZESE, who played Janis's gay pal, Damian: When the movie came out, I lived on the Upper East Side, next door to a school. I mean, I didn't know I lived next to a school — I'd been there for two years and never realized. But all of a sudden there were 14-year-old girls following me in their uniforms. I grew a beard, and I would do that thing like in the movies — wait until a bus came by, then run with the bus.
A New Generation of Fans
FEY: I think we mostly have TBS to thank. It's always on TBS.
CHABERT: Probably about a hundred times a day, people will write the “fetch” line to me on Twitter.
McADAMS: I recently stayed at a bed-and-breakfast in Europe, and the owner's young granddaughter asked me to write down a few lines from the movie at breakfast. I was like a deer in headlights. I couldn't remember any. And she proceeded to give me 12 direct quotes.
WISEMAN: I work with kids. There's always a 17-year-old lacrosse player who changes his hair into a mullet for the championship game — that kind of kid — and it's his favorite movie.
WATERS: My older daughter knew about “Mean Girls” before she knew I directed it. We let our daughters watch it — the younger one conned my wife and I into letting her watch because her sister was. My 11-year-old's first comment was, “Who's Danny DeVito?” [Damian burns a short cla**mate in the film by shouting: “Danny DeVito! I love your work!”] My 7-year-old's was, “What's a wide-set vagina?” That's when I knew we made a mistake.
CAPLAN: I've had quite a few crew members on later gigs bring in DVDs for me to sign for their daughters, who must have been, like, toddlers when we shot the film.
FEY: It has this little net that catches girls as they pa** through preteen and high school age. Girls will come up to me and say it helped them get through a terrible year.
The Future of Mean
FEY: It's early in the process for the musical. We've been enjoying trying to write. I wish so badly we could have had it done in some form for the 10th anniversary, but hopefully before the 15th.
SEAN ANDERS: The “Mean Moms” story line is, the main character's husband gets a promotion, and for the first time in her life, she can be a full-time mom. Her kids go to a suburban public school where the parents are very competitive and hands-on. One of the other characters is that mom who seems to have everything together. The main character gets wrapped up in the insecurity of, “How do people perceive me as a mother?” We're all more insecure than we let on — that's what locked me into the project.
ANDERS: [A boy-centered film project based on a Wiseman book] is still in development, but it brings together an outcast and a popular kid, and deals with the pressures both of them are under. There's a concurrent story of male adult faculty putting each other through a lot of the same. We wanted to show that it never ends.