Mean Girls' Lacey Chabert Imagines What Gretchen Is Up To Today And Offers Thoughts On A Sequel

Lacey Chabert as Gretchen in mean girls
(Image credit: Paramount Pictures)

It's pretty wild to realize that Mean Girls will be celebrating its 20th anniversary next year, and more than anything that's a testament to its massive fanbase. The teen comedy starring Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried, and Lacey Chabert feels as popular today as it did when it was first released in theaters back in 2004. Of course, a natural extension of this love is a constant demand for "more," and Chabert recently expressed her thoughts about both a sequel and where Gretchen might be now that she's in her 30s.

In recent years, Lacey Chabert has been best known for the work she has done in programming on the Hallmark Channel, but the eponymous host of Tamron Hall  took time during a recent interview to ask about the actor's Mean Girls past. Hall asked Chabert about what she thinks her character, Gretchen Wieners, would be up to today. From the description, it sounds like the insecure rich girl who tried to make "fetch" happen is doing quite well for herself in adulthood. Said Chabert,

I would love to see what Gretchen is up to now... I personally think she probably married Jason, you know? They have a lot of babies. She’s running the Toaster Strudel empire. I don’t know.

For those who don't quite get the reference, Gretchen in the movie is said to be the daughter of the inventor of Toaster Strudel – so the suggestion is that she inherited the company and is running it while also being the mother of many children. That's a pretty heavy plate!

I suppose less rosy is the idea that Gretchen married Jason, her unfaithful high school boyfriend who was played by Daniel DeSanto in Mean Girls. But perhaps he has less of a wandering eye these days and is committed to being monogamous.

If imagining the adult life of Gretchen Wieners is only feeding your hunger to see the story get told on screen, know that you're not alone. Lacey Chabert was asked about her thoughts on doing a Mean Girls 2, and it seems that it's an idea to which she is totally open. Said the actor, 

It’s something I would absolutely be open to if it ever happened.

So what's standing in the way of the project happening? Evidently Lacey Chabert is just waiting to get a call from the film's screenwriter/the actor who played math teacher Sharon Norbury: Tina Fey. Tamron Hall lavished praise upon everything that the stars of Mean Girls have done in the years since the movie's release, and Chabert explained,

I think it’s really up to Tina Fey.

Following Netflix's Falling For Christmas, Lindsay Lohan seems to be getting back into acting these days (plus she really wants the sequel to happen), and both Rachel McAdams and Amanda Seyfried have thriving careers (McAdams has also previosuly said that she would be on-board to catch up with Regina George). Mean Girls 2 seems like a natural addition to Hollywood's current trend of producing legacyquels, so we'll just have to wait and see if the project ever gets proper momentum.

For those now feeling in the mood to watch the beloved original, Mean Girls isn't presently streaming, but you can rent or purchase it digitally from Amazon Prime Video.

Eric Eisenberg
Assistant Managing Editor

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.