Amanda Seyfried Reveals Blake Lively Almost Played Breakout ‘Mean Girls’ Role

Mean Girls might be celebrating its 20th birthday next year, but the cast still has some secrets to share. In a new interview, Amanda Seyfried revealed that Blake Lively almost played the part that served as her breakout role. Seyfried starred as the ditsy Karen Smith, a member of the Plastics, alongside Rachel McAdams’ Regina George and Lacey Chabert’s Gretchen Wieners.

“I’d first auditioned for Regina, and I’d flown out to L.A. for the first time with my mother. It was very exciting,” Seyfried recalled in a new Vanity Fair interview. She met Chabert and Lindsay Lohan, who played Cady Heron, at the audition. Lively was playing Karen at that point.

“I flew home, and they were like, ‘You know what, let’s – we think you’re more correct for Karen,’” Seyfried said. “So I was like, ‘Oh, God, okay, sure.’” Of course, Seyfried landed the role, which put her on the road to her first lead role in 2008’s Mamma Mia!. Meanwhile, Lively scored her own breakout role in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005).

This was not the first time Lively’s name came up in behind-the-scenes stories about Mean Girls. In 2019, casting director Marci Liroff told Cosmopolitan U.K. she wanted Lively to play Karen. It was producer Lorne Michaels who suggested Seyfried take the part instead.

“We wanted Blake Lively, who hadn’t done the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants yet, for Karen,” Liroff explained. “She came down to the final tests but, at some point, some of the filmmakers said to keep looking. Amanda Seyfried had read for Regina and we really liked her but then Lorne suggested, ‘Why don’t we make her Karen?’”

In that same interview, Liroff said Gretchen was a “difficult” role to cast. Ashley Tisdale tried for the part, but she did not make it to the final round. Chabert “came in and just got it on the very first take,” Liroff said.

Seyfried and her co-stars still love Mean Girls. In a feature for Interview Magazine in late November, Seyfried and Lohan said they would love to reunite and star in a one-week run of the Mean Girls musical. “That would be really fun,” Lohan said. “Because a Mean Girls 2 is never going to happen, is it?” Seyfried asked.

Writer Tina Fey is now developing a film adaptation of the Mean Girls musical with an all-new cast. She and Tim Meadows are the only actors set to reprise their roles from the 2004 film. During a recent stop on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Fey said production on the musical will start in March.