Rachel McAdams explains why she wasn’t in the Mean Girls commercial

Some cast members of the 2004 movie Mean Girls recently appeared in an advertisement for Walmart, but without one of the film’s main characters.

The commercial, released on 1 November, featured three of the comedy’s original stars - Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Seyfried, and Lacey Chabert - leading up to the announcement of the company’s Black Friday deals. Rachel McAdams, who played Regina George in Mean Girls, recently explained why she wasn’t in the commercial during an interview with Variety on 20 December.

“I don’t know; I guess I wasn’t that excited about doing a commercial if I’m being totally honest. A movie sounded awesome, but I’ve never done commercials, and it just didn’t feel like my bag,” she told the outlet. “Also... I didn’t know that everyone was doing it. I would, of course, always love to be part of a Mean Girls reunion and hang with my Plastics, but yeah, I found that out later.”

The actor went on to explain why she isn’t in the upcoming reboot of the Mean Girls movie, based on the Broadway musical. “Tina [Fey] and I sort of dabbled with a few ideas, but it was tough to make it all work in the end. I was really down for whatever she wanted to do. I think the direction it went in will be fantastic and I cannot wait to see it,” McAdams said.

After the commercial had aired, Chabert - who played Gretchen Wieners in the original film - spoke to Entertainment Tonight about what it was like to portray the character again. “It was so much fun to step back into Gretchen’s shoes and to be with Lindsay and Amanda and spend the whole day together,” she said. “Just like a full-circle moment, again, of all of it. We’re all moms now and nearly 20 years have passed. We had so much fun being together again.”

Ahead of the 20-year anniversary of the film’s release, Chabert said that she thinks a “sequel would be amazing” but that she is simply glad they were able to film the commercial together, if nothing more comes of it. “I’m so thankful that we had that experience and got a chance to do that,” she added.

In the beloved 2000s film, Lohan portrayed high school student Cady Heron, who befriends a group of popular classmates - Gretchen Wieners (played by Chabert), Karen Smith (played by Seyfried), and Regina George (played by McAdams). However, as Cady gets close to the elite girl group - referred to as “The Plastics” - she makes multiple attempts to bring Regina’s high school status down.

Walmart’s advertisement began with Chabert reprising her role as Gretchen, as she could be seen picking up her daughter from school - in order to mock a scene from Mean Girls when Regina picks Cady up to go shopping. “Get in sweetie, we’re going deal shopping,” she quipped.

In the background, Lohan reprised her role as Cady by making a reference to one of The Plastics rules about wearing a certain colour to school. “At North Shore, some things never change,” she said. “On Wednesdays, we still wear pink.”

​​The advertisement then showed Seyfried as Karen, doing a reiteration of her notorious weather report in Mean Girls. “Karen Smith here with the weather,” she said. “There’s a 30 per cent chance that it’s already Wednesday.”