Tina Fey explains how she got that Mean Girls cameo

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Mean Girls.

Going into the new Mean Girls musical movie, fans knew to expect a familiar face or two. After all, both Tina Fey and Tim Meadows reprised their roles from the 2004 film as Ms. Norbury and Principal Duvall. Also, Ashley Park, who played Gretchen Wieners in the Mean Girls Broadway musical, made an appearance as the kids' French teacher. But there was one more familiar face that fans didn't know to expect.

In the final act of the film, after Regina (Reneé Rapp) has been hit by a bus, Cady (Angourie Rice) decides to skip the Spring Fling dance in favor of attending the Mathlete competition. And who's moderating the competition? The original Cady Heron herself, Lindsay Lohan.

"Paramount was like, 'Can you get any of the original ladies? And I was like, 'I can't fit five people in,'" Fey, who wrote both the original and this new film, tells EW. "I felt like if I could only get one person as a surprise, the original movie is really Lindsay's movie. As great as they all are, she's the heart of that movie. And I thought, well, what could she do? I didn't think [she should] play a teacher. I was trying to think of something that you wouldn't expect. And just to have her do that late in the movie, it also feels like it comes, I hope, at a time where fans weren't expecting one more little surprise. It also lets her be smart, which Cady is."

Lohan had made a splashy red carpet appearance at the Mean Girls premiere in Los Angeles earlier this month, which, in hindsight, felt like a clue to her involvement in the movie. Yet, as much as it was a surprise for fans, it was also a surprise for the cast, particularly Rice, who plays Cady in the new film.

"I was so nervous to meet her. I was sick to my stomach," Rice says. "But it was so exciting because I love her performance in Mean Girls. I think she brings such an honesty to her performances and it's just so special. And so to meet her was crazy."

Playing Cady immediately bonded the pair. "One of the first things she said to me was, 'I feel like I know you because I played the same character,' and that meant so much to me," Rice continues. "It just felt so special because it's really rare to play the same character as someone and get to meet them. It's something I've never experienced before."

Some might even call the whole experience… grool.

Mean Girls is in theaters now.

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