Amanda Seyfried has revealed that Blake Lively almost got cast in her role of Karen Smith in Mean Girls.
It’s hard to imagine anyone else in the iconic role, but Amanda, 37, has confessed she almost lost out on the part to The Age of Adeline star.
The Mamma Mia actress has lifted the lid on how the blockbuster could have looked very different.
“I’d flown out to LA for the first time with my mother. It was very exciting,” Seyfried told Vanity Fair about auditioning for the movie.
The young actress had turned up to read for Rachel McAdams’ Regina George part, but the film’s bosses had other ideas.
“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 actress explained how she left the room thinking she’d get a call from show bosses either telling her she was successful or unsuccessful for the part of the Queen Bee, but instead, they had another offer for her.
Emmy winner Seyfried recalled, “I flew home, and they were like, ‘We think you’re more correct for Karen.’ So I was like, ‘Oh God, okay, sure.’”
Mum-of-two Amanda told how she thinks she got the part because she was actually very used to playing peacekeeper in her real life high school experience.
“I think I got Karen because I played that person in high school in order to stay out of the drama,” Amanda, who was only 17 and barely out of school when she played the part, said.
Mean Girls premiered in 2004, long before Blake Lively hit screens in Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants in 2005, and her big break in Gossip Girl in 2007.
“[Lively] came down to the final tests, but, at some point, some of the filmmakers said to keep looking,” casting director Marci Liroff told Cosmopolitan UK in 2019.
“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?’”
