20 Years After Mean Girls , Regina George’s Bedroom Still Reigns Supreme

Photo: Entertainment Pictures / Alamy Stock Photo

“It was my parent’s bedroom, but I made them trade me,” says Regina George nonchalantly when Cady Heron enters her boudoir for the first time in Mean Girls. Proving that she’s not only the Queen Bee of North Shore High School, but also of her very own household, Rachel McAdams’s character’s bedchamber was the dream of Y2K-era girls everywhere.

Patricia Cuccia, set decorator of the original Mean Girls film, which celebrates its 20th anniversary on April 30, tells AD she looked to the teen daughters of her friends for inspiration, and it shows. Anyone who was a teen in the early ’00s can attest to the accuracy of certain accouterments, including bright throw pillows, furniture spruced up with metallic paint, and the abundance of hearts.

“That was [the style] at the time,” production designer Cary White tells AD. Of course, being the main bedroom of a McMansion, in many ways, Regina’s room isn’t your typical teen room. Her bed sits up on a platform, and she has a balcony, an en suite bathroom with an in-ground tub, and a vibrant Mah Jong lounge set from Roche Bobois. The pinks, purples, and oranges of said sofa are reflected throughout, in throw pillows, lantern-esque lamps, and the curtains that frame Regina’s canopy bed—fitting for a Queen Bee, or a princess, as the overhead lettering would attest. “We were trying to show that she was a spoiled brat,” White tells AD.

Cuccia says they had to go all out with the set dressing because the owners of the house where filming took place didn’t want them doing any repainting. (According to White, the crew was also not permitted to remove a nude male statue in the front garden, and had to film around it when the titular Mean Girls roll up in Regina’s convertible after an afternoon of shopping.)

Music was a big touchstone in Mean Girls, not only in the banging soundtrack, but also in hitting the right note for Regina’s room, with posters of Coldplay and Avril Lavigne gracing the walls. Cuccia says there was also a Radiohead poster that was never shot, which gives Regina a certain musical credibility that appears again when she shames Cady (Lindsay Lohan) for not knowing a song. (It was “Overdrive” by Katy Rose, for those playing along with Mean Girls trivia at home.) As we know, Cady was partial to Ladysmith Black Mambazo—“music her parent’s liked,” Cuccia says.

Though Cady gradually morphs into “cold, shiny, hard plastic,” like Regina, their fundamental differences are maintained in their private spaces. Whereas Regina George “wouldn’t ever want to have natural fabrics in her room,” Cuccia says, Cady’s space is more neutral and decorated with artifacts from her family’s time living in Africa. “Cady’s bedroom was small and humble. It was the normal girl’s bedroom, it wasn’t aspirational but it showcased her personality,” which we can see in the childhood photos that endear love interest Aaron Samuels (Jonathan Bennett) to her.

Of course, the most important prop in the film is the Burn Book, which was so influential that its status as a physical tome—rather than a text chain or viral social media thread—was maintained in this year’s musical reboot, despite technology advancing in the 20 years in between. “I did poll some young people I know, including some young people that live in my house,” Tina Fey, who wrote the original movie, its Broadway adaptation, and the new movie based on said Broadway musical (phew!), told The New York Times. “They were like, ‘No, don’t pander to us. It’s a book. Tell the story. We get it.’”

Though Cuccia hadn’t seen Mean Girls 2024 when we spoke, she’s still dumbfounded by the success of the original. “It’s kind of shocking; [it’s] kind of strange and bizarre!” Meanwhile, though White’s currently working on 1923, the prequel to the uber-successful Yellowstone, starring Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren, he’s humbled by Mean Girls’ longevity. “I’ve done lots of things that the world no longer remembers, but occasionally it’s great to work on something that people do.”

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

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