The Real Reason Rachel McAdams Didn't Appear In The Mean Girls Walmart Commercial

Back in November, a commercial reunited a large chunk of the original cast of "Mean Girls." So why wasn't Rachel McAdams involved?

The actress, who originated the on-screen role of Regina George in Tina Fey's classic teen comedy, was notably absent from the commercial, which featured co-stars Lindsay Lohan, Lacey Chabert, Amanda Seyfried, and many more. The Black Friday-focused ad was even set at North Shore High School (the film's original setting) and imagined that Lohan's Cady would be the school's guidance counselor, Chabert's Gretchen would be an over-involved mom, and Seyfried's Karen would, inexplicably, still be delivering terrible weather reports. Both McAdams and Lizzy Caplan, who played Janis Ian in the film, didn't appear. Apparently, McAdams simply ... didn't want to do a commercial. 

"I don't know; I guess I wasn't that excited about doing a commercial if I'm being totally honest," McAdams told Variety. "A movie sounded awesome, but I've never done commercials, and it just didn't feel like my bag. 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." 

In the same interview, Rachel McAdams revealed that though she didn't show up in the Walmart commercial, she and Tina Fey tried to figure out a way for the actress to make a cameo in the upcoming movie musical version of "Mean Girls." As she told Variety, the two discussed possibilities but ultimately couldn't settle on the right one. "Tina and I sort of dabbled with a few ideas, but it was tough to make it all work in the end," she 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."

In this updated version — complete with original songs written by Fey and her husband, Jeff Richmond — McAdams' role as queen bee Regina George will be played by singer-songwriter Reneé Rapp. Though you might recognize Rapp from her role in HBO's comedy "The Sex Lives of College Girls" as another queen bee, Leighton Murray, she actually originated the onstage role of Regina in the Broadway musical adaptation of "Mean Girls," so she's pretty perfectly suited for the role. It's a shame that McAdams and Fey couldn't figure out how to include the first-ever Regina, but it also feels like the right call to nix a cameo from McAdams if these two couldn't settle on something perfect.

For her part, Rachel McAdams' career is doing just fine; the actress has stayed firmly booked and busy since "Mean Girls" was initially released. After the success of both that comedy and her romantic drama "The Notebook," she followed up with hits like "Wedding Crashers," "Red Eye," and "The Family Stone." The actress has performed in everything from Oscar-winning projects like "Spotlight" — for which she was nominated for best supporting actress in 2016 — to dreamy romances like "About Time" to outright comedies like "Game Night," and these days, she's earning accolades for one of her most heartfelt performances yet.

McAdams stars in writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig's adaptation of the classic Judy Blume novel "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" as Barbara Simon, mother to the titular Margaret (Abby Ryder Fortson) and a woman rediscovering herself while also facing new challenges as a parent. Without a first-person perspective from Margaret — which is how the story is told in Blume's novel — McAdams' Barbara gets much more time to shine, and she has a truly affecting storyline about balancing her artwork with her job as a suburban mom. McAdams might not have shown up in the "Mean Girls" commercial, but she's got plenty of other things going on.