“Mean Girls” musical movie cast remembers the first time they saw the original

Reneé Rapp was only 4 years old when she first met Regina George.

“I don’t remember a world pre-Mean Girls. I don’t know if there was a world pre-Mean Girls," Christopher Briney, who plays Aaron Samuels in the upcoming Mean Girls musical movie, tells EW.

Many of Briney's fellow costars feel the same, in part because they were very young when the 2004 film came out.

"There's a photo of me watching it for likely the first time, and I have on a cowboy hat," Reneé Rapp, this version's Regina George, says. "I'm posted up and in the back it's Lindsay Lohan and it's Mean Girls playing. I was 4."

Auli'i Cravalho, who plays Janis, and Bebe Wood, who plays Gretchen, can relate, in that they were little when the film came out and don't really remember life without it. As for Avantika, who plays Karen, she remembers that she watched it for the first time with her father. (Because he isn't a regular dad, he's a cool dad.)

Then there's Angourie Rice, who's taking on the role of Cady Heron. She recalls watching the film many times in her childhood.

"My family, we only had a couple of DVDs that were movies for me and my sister, and we had a portable DVD player," Rice says. "My parents would put me and my sister in the corner of the room and put a DVD on when they were at work, and Mean Girls was one of them. Mean Girls, Sound of Music, and High School Musical 2 were the three that we watched on repeat."

But one cast member knows the exact moment that really had an impact on them: Jaquel Spivey, who plays Damian. After his parents bought the movie for his sister, he jokes that "it was really for me."

He continues, "The thing that stuck with me was, before I knew I was gay, I was always the guy that was with all the girls in the family, So I was like, 'Oh, there's a character who only hangs with the girls!' Now I didn't see myself playing him, but I did see there's one boy, all these fabulous girls, and he's just as fabulous. Then fast forward to the talent show where he's singing his heart out and a shoe is thrown at him and he throws it back. I loved it so much."

For more about the upcoming movie, check out EW's latest cover story and watch our full Around the Table with the Mean Girls cast below.

Mean Girls hits theaters on Friday, Jan. 12

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Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.