Lizzy Caplan almost wasn’t Lindsay Lohan’s feisty BFF Janis Ian in Mean Girls, which, indeed, would not have been fetch. In a new interview on the Podcrushed podcast, the actor opened up about her auditions for the iconic 2004 film, stating she had to “fight” to get the role and revealing who the film studio wanted to cast as Janis instead.
Speaking to host Penn Badgley, Caplan recalled that the audition process was “very, very long,” but it didn’t deter her from wanting to go up for Mean Girls. “It was just the funniest script I had ever read,” she said. “I wanted to be in it so bad. I fought so hard, and then it worked out.”
However, to be considered for the role of Janis Ian, she actually had to try out for a different character first. “Everybody had to audition, I think, for one of the two main [characters]: Cady, the Lindsay Lohan part, or the Rachel McAdams part,” she explained. From there, the casting team separated all of their contenders for different roles into groups for callbacks.
Who Almost Played Janis Ian?
Caplan didn’t specify which part she auditioned for first, but from the beginning, she always wanted to play Janis. Even though she received a callback, there was a stumbling block along the way. “I went in, and they were resistant to casting me,” she said. “Somebody reminded me of this recently: the studio wanted Kelly Osbourne to play that role.”
Given how Osbourne mastered the punk-rock look in 2003, it’s not hard to see why she was the first pick. To convince the casting team that she could pull off Janis’ look, Caplan sought help from a Canadian hairstylist. “We went to Hollywood Boulevard and put on dark wigs and just anything to send them screen grabs of me looking like a goth kid,” she said.
Eventually, her hard work paid off. “I don’t remember how long the process was, but I remember getting the phone call and where I was when I got the phone call that I got the part,” she said. “How many times has that really happened to you in your career: that you just want to celebrate and it’s nothing but exciting?”
