'Mean Girls' cast poses for EW cover portraits

Who's ready to be personally victimized by Regina George... again?

On Jan. 12, Mean Girls is heading back to theaters, but unlike the 2004 film, this time it's getting the musical treatment. (Think less voiceover, more singing.) From writer Tina Fey and producer Lorne Michaels — who also teamed up 20 years ago for the original movie — the story will once again follow Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) as she adjusts to her new life in Illinois and, more importantly, in a public high school.

The cast of the new film includes Rice, Reneé Rapp as Regina, Bebe Wood as Gretchen, Avantika as Karen, Auli'i Cravalho as Janis, Jaquel Spivey as Damian, and Christopher Briney as Aaron Samuels. Fey will also return to the role of Ms. Norbury.

Check out EW's latest cover story on Mean Girls — and find out more about the new film below.

01 of 12

Angourie Rice

"She's coming into an environment that she knows nothing about, and I really connected with that because I traveled a lot when I was in high school," Angourie Rice says of Cady Heron. "I think that's something that so many people can relate to if you're starting a new job, if you are in a new city, if you're making new friends, that feeling of being the new kid never goes away."

02 of 12

Auli'i Cravalho

When Janis 'Imi'ike was labeled a "pyro freak" in the Burn Book, Auli'i Cravalho decided to lean in. "I was bringing pedal-to-the-metal energy," Cravalho says of her interpretation of the beloved character. And this time around, she's one of the story's narrators. "The fact that Janis and Damian [Jaquel Spivey] are the narrators means that in some scenes, we know all, and in some scenes, we don't."

03 of 12

Bebe Wood

"I didn't want to put a massive emphasis on making the character really, really different because I trusted that by the nature of my playing Gretchen, it would already be different enough," Bebe Wood says of taking on an iconic character. "And I think sometimes when you try really hard to just do everything the opposite way of an actor that came before, sometimes you can be making the wrong choice."

04 of 12

Avantika

"I knew that my performance would be funny and charming and feel like it wasn't doing a disservice to the character if I could get out of the mindset of mimicking the original," Avantika says of her Karen. "It's not that I was ever consciously walking into it with the mindset of, 'Let's do everything that Amanda [Seyfried] did,' but more so it's really hard to get her voice out of your brain because I've watched the movie so much. All the iconic lines, I hear them in her cadence and in her intonation, and it's really hard to just get that out."

05 of 12

Christopher Briney and Reneé Rapp

Christopher Briney and Renee Rapp — Christopher Briney and Reneé Rapp.
Myriam Santos/Paramount Pictures

"How do you turn down the possibility to do something in a world that's so known and so iconic and so loved, and to work with Tina and the team behind it?" Christopher Briney, who plays Aaron Samuels alongside Reneé Rapp's Regina George, says. "This is a dream in so many ways. And yes, it comes with a lot of pressure, but as a creative, to get to work with these people and to get to work in a world so much bigger than you, that's what it's all about."

06 of 12

Auli'i Cravalho and Jaquel Spivey

"Once we figured out that basically it's Damian and Janis' movie, then it's like, 'Well, how would they do it?'" co-director Arturo Perez Jr. says. "And then the rules were set. It's like they said, 'I want to do this musical about what happened last year,' and they asked all their friends to do it."

07 of 12

Tina Fey

After adapting the 2004 film into a Broadway musical, Fey started thinking about taking the story back to theaters. "At some point, we probably saw other shows being made into musicals and then back into movies and we thought it would be a fun challenge to go back to the other way of telling the story," Fey says. "And, for whatever reason, people continue to be interested in this story."

08 of 12

Reneé Rapp and Angourie Rice

Renee Rapp and Angourie Rice — Reneé Rapp and Angourie Rice.
Myriam Santos/Paramount Pictures

For both Rapp and Rice, Mean Girls has been a part of their lives for a long time. Rapp has memories of playing "Which Plastic are you?" with her friends, while Rice had the original film on DVD. "We had a portable DVD player," Rice says. "Mean Girls, Sound of Music and High School Musical 2 were the three [movies] that we watched on repeat."

09 of 12

Reneé Rapp

Renee Rapp — Reneé Rapp.
Myriam Santos/Paramount Pictures

"I found out about the musical movie a couple years ago when I was still in the Broadway show," Rapp admits. "The first press release came out about it, and I remember being like, 'Oh my God, this is so cool. I can't wait to hopefully be a part of this.' And then two-and-a-half-years later, we started talking about it."

10 of 12

Christopher Briney

"He's not the loudest kid in town, but he's good," Briney says of his version of Aaron Samuels. "He's a good guy, but it's not really about him. What I really enjoy about it is he gets to be there, but it's not like you follow him home, and you wouldn't really want to. It's Mean Girls, It's not something else."

11 of 12

Jaquel Spivey

Jaquel Spivey tried to distance himself from the first Mean Girls when preparing to play Damian: "I would not allow myself to listen to the cast album, to watch the recordings on YouTube, or watch the movie, which was difficult seeing as how we were in a hotel and everybody knows, if you stay in a hotel, no matter where you are, Mean Girls will be playing. It’s nothing but Mean Girls and SVU. I just wanted to approach it like I've never met him before because the last thing I want to do is copy someone's beautiful work."

12 of 12

Christopher Briney and Angourie Rice

Cady and Aaron's love story unfolds almost entirely in Ms. Norbury's classroom, where Aaron sits in front of Cady. It sounds cute, but in actuality, it wasn't exactly easy for Briney to spend a lot of his performance contorted so that he could turn around and see Rice. "I was straddling the chair because otherwise you couldn't turn around fully, which is kind of funny," Briney admits. "I had to really strap myself into the chair to do it."

Mean Girls hits theaters on Friday, Jan. 12

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