How did Kansas City actress get big role in new ‘Mean Girls’ movie? Tina Fey chose her

There’s a moment in the new “Mean Girls” movie-musical when the verve quiets to focus on a teenage girl standing in her friend’s closet, holding a music box, facing her insecurities and realizing that her narcissistic “Plastic” bestie whose approval she craves is the problem.

It’s an awakening for one of the movie’s main characters, Toaster Strudel heiress Gretchen Wieners, as she sings the melancholy “What’s Wrong With Me?”

“Saturday Night Live” alum Tina Fey chose Kansas City-born actress Bebe Wood to play Gretchen, a role made famous in the original 2004 movie by actress Lacy Chabert, now known as a queen of Hallmark Christmas movies. Fey wrote both the original movie and new musical version, which opened over the weekend.

As a songwriter herself, Wood connected to the lyrics and the anguish of a teenager who sings, “Mama called me beautiful, don’t believe her anymore.”

“I think it’s the one song in the show that is really quiet and intimate. For me, it was a great way to connect with Gretchen,” Wood told The Star recently.

She is 22 and was just a toddler when “Mean Girls,” now a cinematic cult classic, premiered.

It is a cautionary tale about the dangers of high school cliques, focusing on a trio of junior girls known as the “Plastics.” They are led by queen bee Regina George who terrorizes her fellow North Shore High students until new girl Cady Heron engineers her takedown with unwitting help from Gretchen.

Fey based the first movie on the 2002 parenting book “Queen Bees and Wannabes” by Rosalind Wiseman. The film birthed a Broadway musical in 2018, nominated for 12 Tony Awards. Then Fey wrote this new musical version for the big screen.

Don’t, though, call it a remake. Wood considers it a “reimagining” of the OG film.

“I feel like the core of Gretchen is the same, very much the same,” said Wood, who now lives in Boston. “I don’t think anyone was trying to recreate anything.

“But I think something that was intriguing to me is that this movie is also a musical and because of that we’re able to see more of … the vulnerability of Gretchen.”

‘She’s Gretchen’

Twenty years ago, Rachel McAdams (as Regina George), Amanda Seyfried (Karen Smith), Lindsay Lohan (Cady) and Chabert played the four leads.

Fey reprises her role as Ms. Norbury, a teacher who falls victim to the mean girl drama. (One of the original actresses makes a surprise cameo, but we won’t spoil that here.)

“When you’re casting, do you go, ‘How do I redo this again?’ You gotta cast all new,” people, Jimmy Fallon asked Fey in a “Tonight Show” interview last week.

“Casting is like my favorite thing to be a part of,” Fey told him.

She said Gretchen was the last role cast.

“It’s a hard part to cast. We saw a lot of amazing actors,” Fey said. “But you need that person who’s like smart but fragile and looks like they just might come unhinged at any second.”

Fey double-backed and watched “every single tape of every Gretchen” who auditioned. “So I spent like a whole day watching all of them and then I was like, ‘This girl. I love this girl, Bebe Wood. She’s perfect! She’s Gretchen.

“We hired her and then I went to look at her IMDB page and then I realized I had worked with her when she was 10 on ‘30 Rock.’ And I was like, ‘I pick her every time. I like you every time, Bebe Wood.’”

A musical dream

Getting an email in November 2022 asking if she’d like to send in an audition tape for “Mean Girls” “was like a dream come true. I’ve always wanted to do a musical,” said Wood.

Until “Mean Girls,” Wood’s main acting gigs were on TV — two seasons on the ABC sitcom “The Real O’Neals,” the Hulu drama series “Love, Victor” and the short-lived NBC comedy “The New Normal,” her first prime-time series regular role in 2012.

She grew up in Fairway and Kansas City’s Pendleton Heights neighborhood with her parents, Thad and Olga Wood, and began acting as a child. She landed roles in various local stage productions before winning guest spots on episodes of “30 Rock” and “Veep.”

She remembers working with Fey at age 10 when she was just getting into acting “of my own volition,” she said.

In the 2012 “Murphy Brown Lied to Us” episode of “30 Rock,” Wood played a young girl named Cat who inspired Fey’s character, Liz Lemon, to try motherhood.

Wood’s parents weren’t as sold on that career path as she was. And if Fey hadn’t made that gig on “30 Rock” as much fun as it was, “I probably would have given it up. I really attribute my career to Tina.”

Wood attended St. Agnes Catholic School in Roeland Park until fourth grade and then switched to homeschooling to accommodate her acting pursuits. Though she never dealt with high school cliques, Wood understands how they can quash teen spirit.

She also knows which of the new cliques in the film she would have belonged to: the theater kids.

“There are so many messages to be taken from this movie,” she said. “All of this chaos is kinda going on in high school. Being a young person is really hard, especially with the landscape of social media.

“I love in this movie that it feels like there’s still an unbridled sense of joy, and I think that comes from the musical numbers.

“There are really so many fun moments in this movie and despite all the chaos … these kids at North Shore are still able to find joy, which I think is really lovely.”