How Australian Mean Girls star Angourie Rice caught Tina Fey’s attention

Australian child actor Angourie Rice may not be immediately identifiable but the 22-year-old has been working with Hollywood A-listers since she was 13.

Angourie Rice has been working with A-listers since the age of 13, but it wasn’t until she reprised Lindsay Lohan's iconic role in Mean Girls that the world took notice.

The Aussie star, 22, puts playing Ryan Gosling’s daughter in The Nice Guys, down to “luck”.

“They happened to make it when I was the exact right age,” Rice told ELLE Australia, as the magazine returns to print on Monday for the first time since 2020.

Australian actor Angourie Rice is one of Elle Australia's cover stars as the magazine returns to print for the first time in four years. Photo: Bec Parsons/Elle Australia.

Actor Sophie Wilde on the cover of Elle Australia’s first print edition since 2020. Photo: Bec Parsons/Elle Australia.

Rice is one of six cover girls, profiled alongside fellow actors Sophie Wilde and Alycia Debnam-Carey, and Maia Mitchell, as ‘the new vanguard of Australian talent’.

Although the starlet has worked with Sofia Coppola, Kate Winslet, Jennifer Garner, Ryan Gosling, Elle Fanning, Miley Cyrus, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Nicole Kidman, and Rebel Wilson — Rice’s laid-back nature and Melbourne home base have kept her largely on the fringes of fame.

Angourie Rice. Photo: Bec Parsons/Elle Australia.

Angourie Rice. Photo: Bec Parsons/Elle Australia.

Then, Tina Fey emailed asking if she’d consider playing Cady Heron in the film adaptation of Mean Girls: The Musical.

“I was really flattered that Tina thought I would fit into the role,” Rice said. “It’s so iconic.”

Avantika, Angourie Rice, Renee Rapp, and Bebe Wood on the set of Mean Girls. Photo: Jojo Whilden/Paramount Pictures.

Between 2017 and 2021, Rice had been in Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled, three Spider-Man movies as classmate Betty to Tom Holland’s Peter Parker and Zendaya’s MJ, an episode of Black Mirror alongside Miley Cyrus, and Rebel Wilson’s Senior Year as a younger version of her, and won the Best Lead Actress AACTA for Ladies in Black.

Which is to say, Fey had seen her around.

Angourie Rice and Lindsay Lohan. Picture: John Lamparski/WireImage

When news of the Mean Girls remake broke in 2022, stalwart fans of the cult film were quick to pick out Rice’s Australian accent and ask where she had come from. The truth is, Rice has been a film star all along.

“It’s really easy to get swept up in everything overseas,” Rice said of her breakthrough moment, but she has no plans to move to LA.

“It’s a credit to my family [that] home is a really important feeling for me, it’s a balance I really want to preserve.”

ELLE will publish two print editions this year and four editions in 2025.

“For us, print is the cornerstone of any mega publishing brand,” Nicky Briger, General Manager of Fashion and Beauty, said.

“In luxury fashion, print legitimises a brand. To have and to hold a hefty, luxe, glossy magazine represents a savoured moment in time - it’s a luxury product in itself, especially in this digital age where everything is transitory.”

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