Entertainment Movies Amanda Seyfried Says Blake Lively Nearly Played Her 'Mean Girls' Role Amanda Seyfried first auditioned to play Regina George in Mean Girls for her first-ever movie role By Tommy McArdle Tommy McArdle Twitter Tommy McArdle is a digital news writer at PEOPLE covering stories across all of the brand's verticals. Prior to joining PEOPLE, Tommy covered the entertainment industry at Looper and sports at The Sporting News and Boston.com. He graduated from Emerson College in 2019. People Editorial Guidelines Published on February 23, 2023 11:18 AM Share Tweet Pin Email Photo: Paramount/courtesy Everett Collection, Jamie McCarthy/Getty Amanda Seyfried says Blake Lively almost wound up playing Karen Smith in 2004's Mean Girls! During a video interview with Vanity Fair published Wednesday, Seyfried, 37, said that she believes she was cast in the role because she "played that person in high school in order to stay out of the drama" before recalling the specifics of her audition. "I'd first auditioned for Regina, and I'd flown out to L.A. for the first time with my mother. It was very exciting," Seyfried, who was 17 at the time, said of her first film role. "I met [Gretchen Wieners actress] Lacey Chabert for the first time, and Lindsay Lohan was in the room and Blake Lively was playing Karen, and then I was Regina." "I flew home, and they were like, 'You know what, let's — we think you're more correct for Karen,' so I was like, 'Oh, God, okay, sure,' " she added of the casting process. Mean Girls casting director Marci Liroff once told Cosmopolitan UK that while the production initially wanted Lively, who had not yet rose to fame for 2005's Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, to play Karen, producer Lorne Michaels ultimately suggested casting Seyfried in the role. See the Cast of Mean Girls Then & Now CBS "[Lively] came down to the final tests but, at some point, some of the filmmakers said to keep looking," Liroff said during a 2019 interview with the outlet. "Amanda Seyfried had read for Regina and we really liked her but then Lorne suggested, 'Why don't we make her Karen?' " Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. In December, Seyfried and Mean Girls costar Lohan, 36, reunited for a chat for Interview magazine in which the pair got candid about their hit 2004 comedy, which follows Lohan as Cady, a teenager raised in Africa who gets a rude awakening when she is introduced to life at an American high school. "I would kill just to do one week, all of us playing our own roles on Mean Girls on Broadway," Seyfried said during the conversation, to which Lohan responded: "That would be really fun." Lindsay Lohan and Amanda Seyfried in Mean Girls (2004). CBS via Getty Images Amanda Seyfried Felt 'Grossed Out by' Male Fans Who Asked Her About Mean Girls Weather Gag "Because a Mean Girls 2 is never going to happen, is it?" Seyfried asked. While Lohan admitted she "[doesn't] know" about a potential sequel, she noted, "I heard something about it being a movie musical and I was like, 'Oh no.' We can't do that. It has to be the same tone." "Listen, we're all part of each other's worlds whether we like it or not, and it is really nice to be in contact as adults," Seyfried added during the conversation. "Yeah, everyone's still the same," Lohan agreed. "It's fun to have certain memories that we can't share with anyone else."