Commercials are apparently in Rachel McAdams’ burn book. While the rest of the original Mean Girls cast—that’s Lindsay Lohan (Cady), Lacey Chabert (Gretchen), Amanda Seyfried (Karen), Daniel Franzese (Damian), and Rajiv Surendra (Kevin)—stepped back into their plastic heels and pink tops for a Walmart ad set at North Shore High earlier this year, there was one notable exception at the Black Friday party. Queen bee Rachel McAdams did not make an appearance in her old kingdom to either regain her throne or at least teach a seminar for the next generation on looking both ways before crossing the street so you don’t get hit by a goddamn bus.
As the ad, which sees the old crew coming back to school as parents this time around, is totally canon (as we determined last month), it might be nice to believe Regina’s old lackeys were finally able to find some peace and leave the world of candy cane grams and color-coded daily dress requirements in the past. But the real answer is far simpler than that. “I don’t know; I guess I wasn’t that excited about doing a commercial if I’m being totally honest,” McAdams recently told Variety. “I’ve never done commercials, and it just didn’t feel like my bag.”
Luckily, it sounds like there’s still a lot of love between McAdams and her former cast-mates, even if she did terrorize them on screen. “I didn’t know that everyone was doing it,” she continued. “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.”
McAdams, who recently starred in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, will also sit out the upcoming Mean Girls musical adaptation, despite what sounds like everyone’s best efforts at an OG Regina cameo. “Tina (Fey) and I sort of dabbled with a few ideas, but it was tough to make it all work in the end,” McAdams said. “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.” Regina is dead; long live Regina. It’s Reneé Rapp’s turn to rule now.