By: Lynn Barker
Popular 2004 movie Mean Girls, which starred a young and less-troubled Lindsay Lohan, is followed by Mean Girls 2 featuring a new generation of “Plastics” and “real” girls at an average high school as they fight for social girl-power and just plain survival in the teen jungle.
Premiering on ABC Family later this month and then on DVD with a lot of cool extras Feb. 1st, MG2 stars well-known Disney Channel femmes Meaghan Martin, Jennifer Stone and Nicole Gale Anderson who played Macy on TV’s “Jonas”.
Mean Girls 2
Nicole might need to conjure up the total opposite of her friendly personality to portray a “Plastic” but when Kidzworld got her on the cell from San Diego, she told us she had a blast making the film. Check it out!
Kidzworld: First off, the “Jonas” show is over but are you still friends with the Jonas guys?
- Nicole: Yeah, we’re still friends and wish each other Happy Thanksgivings and Merry Christmas and talk to each other when we can but we’re all really busy.
Kidzworld: Had you seen the original Mean Girls film and what did you think?
- Nicole: I’m a huge fan of it! They called me about the audition with ‘Well, they’re making a Mean Girls 2 and wondering if you wanted to go out for it’. I was like ‘I am such a huge fan of the first one, I don’t care what role I get’. It’s definitely one of my favorites. It’s something my friends and I quote all the time.
Nicole in Mean Girls 2
Kidzworld: Your character has one of the best lines in the film: “Ewww, there’s poo on my Jimmy Choos!” How did you say that or even step in the fake poo without cracking up?
- Nicole: [laughing] It was such a bizarre thing to do especially since it was this fake, rubbery poo. I felt bad. I kept thinking ‘Oh my Gosh, these poor shoes!’ I was like ‘I’ve got to hold it together. We’re filming in summer heat in Atlanta outside!’
Kidzworld: Have you ever been a victim of Mean Girls either in school or in show business?
- Nicole: I was in public school up until the 8th grade. I was a huge bookworm, total nerd so I was a victim in Middle School. I was in three academic clubs so I was an easy target. You grow up and you’re like ‘Oh, that’s just school’. I always had my real friends through gymnastics and things like that. You have to brush it off and think ‘As long as I’m being true to myself and doing things I enjoy, it doesn’t matter what other people think’.
Mean Girls 2 on the balcony
Kidzworld: What about Mean Girls among the young Hollywood actresses you have to compete with now?
- Nicole: It’s a funny city. I always think of young Hollywood as its own little high school. There are the girls who have been working for a while that are kind of like the Queen Bees and the new kids at “school” just starting out. It’s exactly the same thing. My best friends are just girls who go to school. They’re not in the industry and we have dinner nights and learn how to cook together and go on hiking trails and the beach. You have to find your true friends like you do in school and just watch your back. Hopefully they’ll all grow out of it.
Nicole (left) in "Mean Girls 2
Kidzworld: Do you think some girls are just overly mean to other girls because they are insecure?
- Nicole: Definitely. Mean Girls get a kick out of the whole power trip. As long as they’re on top and people are saying nice things about them, they can’t be hurt. It’s a defense mechanism. You’d like to burn someone first before getting burned.
Kidzworld: Your “Plastic” character Hope is a germ freak. I assume you are not. Know anyone like that?
- Nicole: I kind of poked fun at the character because she reminded me of my mom! She’s slightly a hypochondriac. I remember moving to L.A. with her and getting an apartment and she was bleaching all the walls. She didn’t want other people’s germs. I got inspiration from that.
Mean Girls 2
Kidzworld: You wear a green facial mask in the movie. You look like an avocado. Did you go anywhere off set in that? You look like Elphaba in “Wicked”.
- Nicole: [laughs] I had really nice make-up artists and everyone on set got a kick out of it. All the extras cracked up.
Kidzworld: Who was the biggest jokester on set and what prank did they pull?
- Nicole: I think Maiara Walsh and Claire Holt [two of her fellow Plastics] together would prank people. Jennifer [Stone, who plays Abby] and I loved taking naps on set but we eventually became afraid of falling asleep because we didn’t want to know what we would find when we woke up.
Kidzworld: Yikes! Are all the girls in the movie, both Plastics and Jo’s pals, all really friends off set? Do you still see any of them?
- Nicole: We all got along so well and it was something I was definitely nervous about because there are four other [lead] girls in this movie and I didn’t know how we were going to get along. I didn’t know if anyone would get really catty but I did know Jennifer Stone from other Disney Channel work and Meaghan Martin [who plays lead character Jo] as well and thought ‘Oh, that’s awesome. I love those girls’. Then I’d met Maiara Walsh a couple of times at auditions and knew she was cool. We all ended up getting along and I’m still friends with them to this day. Claire and I became best friends. We have a Thai restaurant where we always meet up every couple of weeks for dinner.
Kidzworld: Are you part of the video diaries on the DVD?
- Nicole: I did a little of it but forgot about having my Flipcam around so any time something funny happened I was like ‘Oh shoot! I should have gotten that on camera’ but I never did.
Nicole Anderson Interview
Kidzworld: Any funny stories from hanging out on set or off that you can tell me?
- Nicole: During the last day of filming we were shooting all of the big powderpuff football scenes. It decided to rain and we were freaking out. ‘We’ve got to get this done’. We ended up taking cover inside the high school in this one little room and got cabin fever. We started acting goofy and doing rain dances to help stop the rain. The director took out her Flipcam and started recording us.
Kidzworld: Will that be on the DVD extras?
- Nicole: I’m not sure. Maybe if she wants to blackmail us because it would be embarrassing.
Kidzworld: Why should teens go out and buy or at least rent Mean Girls 2 on DVD?
- Nicole: I think it’s a feel good comedy about girls playing pranks on each other and it has a lot of heart. You learn not to fight fire with fire and to be the bigger person and also learn it is important to be true to yourself.
