Bebe Wood, the new Gretchen Wieners, shares the dictionary definition of ‘fetch’ (as best she can)

Tina Fey has changed Bebe Wood's career — twice.

Wood, who plays Gretchen Wieners in the 2024 movie musical adaptation of "Mean Girls," says Fey was her "first scene partner," dating all the back to when she was 10 years old and appeared in a brief role on "30 Rock."

If it weren't for Fey, Wood says she might not have pursued acting at all. Now, Fey has changed the trajectory of Wood's career again, casting her in the 2024 musical and propelling the 20-something cast into the pop culture forefront, tasked with putting a fresh spin on familiar lines like, "That's so fetch."

Wood wasn't pushed into the acting industry as a child, she says, but it was something she dreamed of. Stepping onto the set of "30 Rock" marked one of the earliest instances of actualizing that dream, she says.

"I think in that moment, I was like, 'This is the moment I get to see what this dream I've had for so long is all about," she tells TODAY.com in an interview. "What's strange is that I really do remember thinking and feeling that."

In her brief scenes from the Season Six episode "Murphy Brown Lied To Us," Wood plays Cat, a mini-Liz Lemon whiz kid who bonds with Fey's character over feminism and love of "To Kill A Mockingbird."

Fey was a "lovely, caring person," and her energy on set made Wood want to keep acting.

"I think if I didn't have fun that day, I probably would have just been like, 'OK, I'm good. I can go back to regular school and we don't have to keep doing this,'" she says.

Flash forward more than a decade later to January 2023, after Wood had submitted her audition tape for the new "Mean Girls" movie. By then, she had racked up credits across TV and film, including in the show "Love, Victor" and "The Real O'Neals."

A few weeks passed before she was asked to meet with the film's directors. She logged onto the Zoom call and saw Fey's face fill her screen.

"She said to me, 'Hey Bebe, do you remember me?'" Wood recalls.

Wood says she later learned that Fey and her team had been struggling to cast the part of Gretchen, so she looked through the audition tapes on her own. She called Wood back in to meet with the team and put two-and-two together about their "30 Rock" connection.

"She says it's kind of crazy for her because she picked me once 12 years ago, and then without even really knowing, she picked me again," Wood says.

"Mean Girls" came out when Wood was about 4 years old. As a result, she "can't remember a life without" it. Instead of recollecting a specific time she watched it, she says the film represented different things to her at different points in her life. As a young preteen, it was an aspirational look at the grown up "girl world" she wanted to be a part of. In high school, it felt more like a "survival guide."

"It's such a staple and such a comfort movie, and I think it's so culturally relevant," she says. "We weren't trying to remake the original. We weren't trying to touch the original, really."

The themes of the film hold true today. Even in the world of social media and even in settings outside of high school, the idea of a "mean girl" arguably has the same contours as it did in 2004.

"Everybody is the mean girl in somebody's life, right?" Wood explains. "To Janis, Regina is the mean girl, and to Regina, Janis is the mean girl. Everyone has their own perception and definition of what mean girl means to them."

"I think that's kind of been the same for the last 20 years, and I think it'll probably remain the same for the rest of humankind," she adds.

Instead, Wood's job was to give Lacey Chabert's character a Gen Z refresh and a musical spin. To do that, she put her faith in Fey's dialogue, which she says contains the "essence" of each character.

"I think from that point on, you kind of just have to trust that by virtue of your being different performer, the performance will be different," she says.

She didn't want to "overthink" it and make acting choices for the sole purpose of standing out.

"Sometimes you can fall into a trap where you're not actually honoring or staying true to the character," she says.

What helped was the inclusion of a Gretchen Wieners solo song entitled "What's Wrong With Me?" The song helped Wood dive into the "inner world" of Gretchen, who's often reduced to the stock character of a sidekick.

"Everyone has their insecurities. Even the most seemingly put together, seemingly competent, seemingly happy people have their insecurities," Wood says of the song. "It's so easy to create a life and create a version of yourself that you would like to be perceived. And that's not real."

"Something that I love about Gretchen — I think it's very core to who Gretchen is — she's really just a person that wants to love and be loved in return," Wood adds.

In addition to wanting to loved, Gretchen is of course, just someone who wants to make fetch happen. Wood has her own take on why it never will.

If she had to write a dictionary entry for the word "fetch," Wood says she'd define it as "the greatest thing ever." Synonym: "unattainable."

"Things have been happening, and I've been saying, 'Oh, that's so great.' And everyone's like, 'Why aren't you saying fetch?'" Wood says. "I guess, maybe that's just because fetch is unattainable. Fetch is the greatest thing ever and maybe that's why people don't say it enough."

Maybe there's simply nothing that can ever climb the ranks of greatness to ever earn the adjective.

But Gretchen will keep trying.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com