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Mean Girls is a 2004 American teen comedy film directed by Mark Waters and written by Tina Fey. It stars Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert, and Amanda Seyfried. The film follows Cady Heron (Lohan), a naïve teenager who transfers to an American high school after years of homeschooling in Africa. Heron quickly befriends two outcasts, with the trio forming a plan to exact revenge on Regina George (McAdams), the leader of an envied clique known as the Plastics. Fey conceived the idea for Mean Girls after reading the self-help book Queen Bees and Wannabes. The book describes female high school social cliques, school bullying, and the damaging effect they can have on teenagers. Fey also drew from her own experience at Upper Darby High School, in Upper Darby Township, Pennsylvania, as an inspiration for some of the film's concepts. Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels produced the film. Fey was a long-term cast member and writer for Saturday Night Live. Principal photography took place from September to November 2003. Although set in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, the film was mostly shot in Toronto, Canada. Mean Girls premiered at the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles, California on April 19, 2004, and was released in the United States on April 30, by Paramount Pictures. The film grossed over $130 million worldwide and received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised Waters's direction, Fey's screenplay, its humor, and the performances; especially lauded was Lohan's acting, which earned several accolades, including three Teen Choice Awards and two MTV Movie Awards, and in 2021, was listed as the eleventh-best performance of the 21st century by The New Yorker. A made-for-television sequel, Mean Girls 2, premiered on ABC Family in January 2011. Mean Girls also spawned various adaptations, including a stage musical, which premiered on Broadway in March 2018, with a film adaptation that was released in January 2024. Plot After being homeschooled for her entire life, sixteen-year-old Cady Heron begins her first day at North Shore High School. She befriends outcasts Janis and Damian, who explain the school's various cliques, warning her about the "Plastics": the insecure Gretchen Wieners, the dimwitted Karen Smith, and the ruthless queen bee Regina George. Cady is unexpectedly invited to join the Plastics, which Janis hopes to use to collect information on Regina, who she accuses of "ruining her life." Later that day, Cady develops a crush on her classmate Aaron; Gretchen warns her that as Regina's ex he is off-limits. Despite Janis' insistence that Regina is "evil," Cady comes to enjoy hanging out with the group at the mall and writing insulting remarks about their classmates and teachers in a diary called the "Burn Book". However, at a Halloween house party, instead of talking to Aaron on Cady's behalf, Regina kisses him in front of her and resumes their relationship. Feeling betrayed, Cady fully commits to Janis' plan to ruin Regina's life. Over the following months, Cady, with Janis and Damian's help, manages to turn Gretchen against Regina and trick her into revealing her secrets, break up Regina's relationship with Aaron (and spend time with him by pretending to need math tutoring), and cause her to gain weight by giving her high-calorie snack bars under the pretense that they are diet food. After violating the Plastics' dress code rules by wearing sweatpants, the only thing that fit her, Regina is banished and Cady becomes the new "queen bee". With her parents out of town, Cady throws a house party. Drunk, she admits to Aaron that she doesn't really need math tutoring, and he renounces her as being no better than Regina. Janis confronts Cady for throwing a party instead of attending her art show, and declares that she has become as plastic as she pretended to be. Meanwhile, Regina discovers Cady's sabotage and pastes her own photo in the Burn Book to frame Cady, Karen, and Gretchen. Regina distributes photocopies of the book throughout the hallways, inciting chaos. Principal Duvall and math teacher Ms. Norbury gather the female junior students in the gym to talk through their social issues. When Janis reveals her plan to destroy Regina to the students' cheers, Regina storms out and is struck by a school bus, which fractures her spine. After realizing a comment she wrote in the Burn Book has implicated Ms. Norbury as a drug dealer, Cady decides to take full responsibility for the book, becoming a social pariah. In order to earn extra credit, Cady joins the school Mathletes at the state finals, answering the tiebreaker correctly to win the championship. The team arrives at the Spring Fling dance, where Cady is elected queen. She breaks the plastic tiara and distributes the pieces to others in the crowd, makes peace with those she had wronged, and shares a slow dance with Aaron. As senior year begins, the Plastics have disbanded; Regina joins the lacrosse team to channel her anger and Gretchen and Karen join their own cliques. Reflecting on the relative social peace that has taken over North Shore High, Cady notices a trio of new "Junior Plastics" and wonders how much longer it will last. Cast The film's large cast also includes Molly Shanahan and Jonathan Malen as Kristen Hadley and her boyfriend, Ky Pham and Danielle Nguyen as "Cool Asian" students Trang Pak and Sun Jin Dinh, and Daniel DeSanto and Diego Klattenhoff as jocks Jason and Shane Oman, Gretchen and Regina's respective boyfriends. Dwayne Hill plays predatory gym teacher Coach Carr. Alisha Morrison plays "unfriendly" student Lea Edwards and Jan Caruana plays overweight student Emma Gerber. Wai Choi plays mathlete Tim Pak. Julia Chantrey plays Amber D'Alessio and Jacky Chamberlain and Olympia Lukis appear as disabled students Giselle Sgro and Jessica Lopez. Stefanie Drummond plays offbeat student Bethany Byrd. Tyson Fennell appears as Cady's childhood crush Nfume. Alexandra Stapley portrays student Taylor Wedell and Laura DeCarteret plays her mother, while Nicole Crimi portrays Regina's younger sister Kylie and Dan Willmott appears as her father. Sharron Matthews portrays Mr. Duvall's secretary Joan and Clare Preuss plays Marymount Prep student Caroline Krafft. Production Development Tina Fey read Rosalind Wiseman's Queen Bees and Wannabes and called Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels to suggest it could be turned into a film. Michaels contacted Paramount Pictures, who purchased the rights to the book. As the book is nonfiction, Fey wrote the plot from scratch, borrowing elements from her own high school experience and her impressions of Evanston Township High School and New Trier Township High School from her time living in the Chicago area, upon which the film's fictional "North Shore High School" is based. Fey named many characters after real life friends. In a 2014 interview about the movie, she told Entertainment Weekly, "I tried to use real names in wr.... Discover the Karen Keishin Armstrong popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Karen Keishin Armstrong books.