What Really Happened To Janis Ian From Mean Girls?

Just about every line in "Mean Girls" is iconic: Fans celebrate Mean Girls Day every October 3rd, just because the date was mentioned in a line of dialogue, and on Wednesdays, we still wear pink. Then there's the line delivered by Lizzy Caplan as Janis Ian, when Damian (Daniel Franzese) drives her past the Halloween party where Cady (Lindsay Lohan) has been hanging out with The Plastics. Fed up with her flaky friend, she spits, "You are a mean girl." We love a title drop!

In the decades since "Mean Girls," Caplan has at times struggled to shake the film's impact on her career. "I was young and just starting out so I wanted to distance myself from it as much as possible," she told Harper's Bazaar. The film was successful, but Caplan felt left behind by the movie. While Lohan became one of the most famous people in America after the film, Caplan did not. "I thought that meant that I was off to the races. And that is certainly not what happened ... I didn't really understand how I could be in something that seemed to be successful and none of that success seemed to be rubbing off on me," she told NPR.

As a result, fans might have lost track of her career. Here's what happened to Lizzy Caplan from "Mean Girls" — the girl who once told Cady that she's "cold, shiny, hard plastic" is now one of the most consistently-employed actors in Hollywood.

Lizzy Caplan had acted before "Mean Girls." She was in a few episodes of "Freaks and Geeks," for one, and she led the cast of a show called "The Pitts." "Mean Girls" was the first role that brought her real notoriety, however, and at first Caplan wasn't sure she liked that. "The idea of being easily recognizable on the street leaves such a horrible taste in my mouth that I like to do anything I can to stay anonymous for a while," she told Heeb. Caplan also explained that she intentionally sought roles that would allow her to switch up her look, so that fans wouldn't be able to spot her.

After all, it was the mid-aughts, and several of Caplan's peers were getting into trouble with the paparazzi. "You have to court it to a certain extent," Caplan explained. "I don't go out to the clubs like those young Hollywoods. It's just not my life."

While switching up her look might have been a survival mechanism, Caplan has also shared how hard it was to find work after "Mean Girls" because she didn't want to be typecast as a Janis Ian type. She told The Independent, "For like a year, I couldn't get a job." These days, she doesn't think she would have as much trouble in this niche. "There'd be more opportunities for somebody playing the weird goth girl in a movie than there was back then," she reflected.

In the wake of "Mean Girls," Lizzy Caplan found it easier to get work on television than in films. "The next thing I did, I straight up dyed my hair blonde and got a spray tan," she told The Independent. That image switch-up landed her a part on "Related," a drama that aired on The WB. She had also appeared on The WB superhero show "Smallville," and she told Vanity Fair that she would've preferred a recurring role on that show instead. "I could have ended up living in Vancouver for 10 years and potentially would have been the number two of the NXIVM cult!" she joked.

Next came "The Class," a 2006 sitcom about a group of people reconnecting after their elementary school reunion. The cast included many other up-and-coming stars who would go on to much bigger fame, including Jason Ritter, Jon Bernthal, and future "Modern Family" star Jesse Tyler Ferguson. At first, Caplan was nervous about playing Kat Warbler, afraid she was too close to Janis Ian. Thankfully, over time, she uncovered more shades of the character. "[Unlike Janis,] there's a sort of sex appeal to how they present her, which is always fun to play," she told Backstage.

The show was well-received, picking up an Emmy nomination and winning the People's Choice Award for Favorite New TV Comedy. Unfortunately, it also only lasted one season. Caplan told Vanity Fair, "[The cancellation] was heartbreaking at the time."

In his 2022 book "Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir," Matthew Perry wrote about a steamy relationship with an actress more than a decade his junior. While he didn't print her name, culture-watchers pieced together that Perry was writing about Lizzy Caplan. When she turned 23 and he was 36, he crashed her birthday party and they made out in the back of a Toyota. "So began two years of probably record-breaking amounts of sexual intercourse, with no strings attached, both of us following the friends-with-benefits rule to a tee," he wrote (via the New York Post). They eventually fell in love, and Perry almost proposed. "I loved this woman, and I wanted her to know it," he wrote. After planning an elaborate proposal involving an original painting he'd had commissioned of the actor, Perry felt that he missed the moment. They wound up going their separate ways.

According to the memoir, they almost reconnected years later. Perry wrote that Caplan sent him a curt email about the fact that she was now in a different relationship, however, and they never spoke again. In fact, Caplan told Vanity Fair that she hadn't read the book and didn't recall sending the email. "I don't remember that!" she said. "You know, I have no ill will. I hope the book is really successful." Unfortunately, Perry died in 2023, and Caplan has not spoken publicly about the loss.

In 2008, after spending a few years on various television shows, Lizzy Caplan returned to film with "Cloverfield." The iconic horror movie is about a monster attacking New York City, though Caplan didn't know that when she auditioned for the part of Marlena. She told Movieweb that she tried out based purely on the party scene that opened the film. "We saw character breakdowns and the characters were there but it didn't say anything about a monster," she said. The movie was a huge success, helping kick off a cycle of found footage films that would dominate the genre.

Director Matt Reeves heaped praise on Caplan's performance 15 years later, telling SyFy that her death scene was one of the most logistically challenging of the shoot. (Spoiler: She explodes!) "I did the part with the actors, and that part I knew was going to work, especially with [what] Lizzy [Caplan] did," he said. "It was really harrowing to hear her scream as they were taking her away."

After "Cloverfield," Caplan wouldn't star in another horror film until 2023's "Cobweb." She told The Hollywood Reporter that she felt pigeonholed into comedies, plus she wasn't particularly looking for another horror film to star in, either. "I wasn't really even a horror fan until probably the last decade or something," she ruminated. "My husband is very into horror movies, and he has dragged me into the fandom in a very real way."

Beginning in 2009, Lizzy Caplan was part of the cast of "Party Down," a cult favorite sitcom from the creator of "Veronica Mars." She played Casey Klein, a cater waiter and aspiring actor. The cast included actors like Adam Scott and Jane Lynch, and Caplan grew very close to her fellow stars. "That experience, being on that set and having those particular castmates and that particular show ... I'm ridiculously proud of the show," she told Meaww. "I think it's as close to perfect as a TV show can be."

Caplan could relate to Casey thanks to her own past as a waiter. She passed appetizers at the premiere of "Being John Malkovich," and she was ignored. "I was just, like, a tray that moved, and feeling those feelings that all the characters in 'Party Down' were feeling ... 'Oh, you don't know who I am now, but you just wait!'" Caplan recalled to NPR.

Though the show was short-lived, it developed a following that led to a 2023 revival. Caplan initially wasn't going to return due to prior filming commitments, but — spoilers! — she made a surprise cameo anyway. In an interview with Variety, Caplan promised that she would return if the show ever comes back for more episodes. "There is no universe in which I wouldn't be in the fourth season of 'Party Down,'" she insisted. "They would have to tie me to the train tracks to keep me away."

In 2014, Lizzy Caplan said she couldn't see herself dating another actor. "I don't want to sacrifice my own goals to be a mother," she told Elle Canada. The actor knew how it usually went when two actors had kids. "If there are two working actors and both of them get a job and they have a baby, the woman is going to stay with the baby," she mused. Instead, she said she was hoping for someone who would be content as a stay-at-home dad.

The following year, however, Caplan met actor Tom Riley in London. Their relationship progressed quickly, and in 2016, they announced their engagement by confirming the news. People published a close-up photo of the engagement ring, an impressive diamond. It turned out Caplan had the ring worn on a red carpet before anyone even knew about the engagement.

When Caplan and Riley married in September 2017, her husband posted a jokey caption about his new wife in a since-deleted Instagram post (via People). "This one seems fertile," he wrote. "She shall make a satisfactory first wife." It seems that the couple loves to tease one another, and Caplan gives as good as she gets. "The best part about him is that he used to be, like, very ugly," she joked on "Conan." "Seriously. ... He's got the soul of a funny, like, funny-looking guy, but then he glowed up, as the kids say."

Lizzy Caplan has come a long way from the days when she feared she'd be typecast after "Mean Girls." Now, she's a two-time Emmy nominee! Her first recognition came in 2014 when she was nominated for her work on "Masters of Sex." In the Showtime series, Caplan played Virginia Johnson, a pioneering sex researcher. She spoke with Entertainment Weekly about the nomination, claiming that she tried not to get too excited and actually slept through the announcement. "Late last night, I was online and I decided to read my horoscope for today. And they were all bad!" she joked. On a more serious note, speaking with The New York Times, Caplan said she was proud to be nominated for a drama. "People would be more pleasantly surprised ... if more actors and actresses got to stretch their wings," she said.

In 2023, almost a decade later, she received a second nod. This time, she was recognized for her work on "Fleishman is in Trouble." She played Libby, the main character's friend who also serves as the show's narrator. In a statement to People, Caplan called the nomination a "very lovely and truly unexpected shock." She added that most of all, she was happy she got to be on such a great show. "I'm just grateful I got to do this thing with everybody who was involved. Making 'Fleishman' was an absolute joy," she said. "That was the cake, this is the icing."

In 2021, Lizzy Caplan gave birth to Alfie, her first son with Tom Riley. They kept Alfie's existence a secret until 2022, when Riley went on "Late Night with Seth Meyers" and broke the news. He claimed that they didn't intentionally conceal the pregnancy. "It's not like we snuck Lizzy into the hospital under a blanket and two days later we like, emerged with a baby hidden in a bowling ball bag. We just ... no one asked!" Meyers asked how fatherhood was treating Riley, and he confessed that they had what he called an "explosive" incident aboard a transatlantic flight with their newborn. "Like a confetti cannon," he joked. "Like we're celebrating something awful." The rest of the anecdote involves Caplan on her hands and knees in the airplane bathroom, cleaning the baby in such a way that "it just looks like she's eating out of the toilet." Riley admitted, "She's gonna kill me for telling this."

Motherhood seems to agree with Caplan for the most part. In an interview with Grazia, she shared that she was glad they waited to have kids; Riley is in his 40s. "We got a lot of life in before we had a kid, so we were both very ready to do this," she said. Caplan also confessed that she found herself smiling a lot around her son, not even realizing that she was doing it. She added, "It's like this unrivaled pure joy."

When she's not working, Lizzy Caplan loves to unwind with some reality television, just like most of us. She told Entertainment Weekly that, in particular, she's obsessed with the "Real Housewives" universe. "I would give the 'Real Housewives' franchise an Emmy," she joked, "for being the necessary McDonald's for my brain at the end of a very, very long day." She expanded on her love for the housewives in an interview with The New York Times. "I find reality television to be so delectable. I cannot even fully express how much it means to me," she ruminated. "It's this idea of taking a somewhat normal human being and then putting them on this frying pan of fame. In real time, you can watch fame ruin somebody and makes them go insane."

Accordingly, she was on "Watch What Happens Live" in 2023, and host Andy Cohen put Caplan through her paces in a quiz they called "What's The Tizzy, Lizzy?" The segment required Caplan to identify whether a given quote — "Is butter a carb?" for example, or "I said I'm sorry! You want me to pop a vein?" — was from a "Real Housewives" show or from "Mean Girls." ("Mean Girls" and "Housewives" respectively, for the record). Caplan did well. "Having been in 'Mean Girls' and being a 'Housewives' superfan," Cohen said, "Lizzy Caplan is an expert on the complicated relationships that women can have." Can't argue with that!

Lizzy Caplan has had a complicated relationship with "Mean Girls" over the years. "I'm very proud of 'Mean Girls,' and yeah, maybe it set the precedent for my career, but it was also so long ago. I think, if anything, if you set any sort of precedent, you want to try and get as far away as possible," she told Paste Magazine in 2012. By 2018, however, Caplan was comfortable enough with her legacy to attend a performance of "Mean Girls: The Musical" on Broadway. She even went backstage to hang out with the cast, according to photos posted on Instagram by E! News.

Caplan told Us Weekly that seeing the stage show made her surprisingly emotional. "It was just like somebody doing a Broadway musical of your high school experience," she reflected, "which is what making the movie felt like." In an interview with "Access Hollywood," Caplan elaborated, "I saw the musical on Broadway. I was a big fan. I'm very excited for the movie." Thankfully, fans won't have to wait too long to see what Caplan saw on stage. The musical adaptation of "Mean Girls" hits theaters in January 2024.

In a 2019 interview with Vulture, Lizzy Caplan said that she's not sure she'll ever feel like a grown-up. "Mentally, I will always be 22," she confessed. However, Caplan allowed that she had matured since 'Mean Girls,' and she said she's found a way to treat acting more like a job. "If I got along with my castmates, it was the best experience, and if I didn't, it was horrifying," she reflected on her past mindset. "Each job was my entire universe."

These days, Caplan has other things to focus on. For example, she loves neighborhood gossip, as she explained in a pandemic-era appearance on "Conan." The "Das Boot" star said she learned her neighbor's name is Celia, and she knows that because someone else came by to yell at her once a week. The woman stood in the street and regularly screamed for Celia to come outside. "It goes on, I mean, for like 45 minutes," Caplan said. "The vocal work is impressive! ... It's so loud!" Furthermore, the recurring incident led Caplan to root for something she normally would be against. "I don't like to see people fight. I don't love violence," Caplan insisted. "But it's gotten to a point where all I want is for Celia to come out of the house and for them to fight each other in the street." Caplan hasn't given an update on whether that ever happened, so all we can do is wonder.

Early in her career, Lizzy Caplan made an effort to avoid typecasting. She hasn't been typecast these days, but she has become a reliable go-to actor who's been asked to reinterpret various iconic roles. In 2019, she put her spin on Annie Wilkes, Kathy Bates' furious fan from "Misery," for the show "Castle Rock." The Hulu series remixed various Stephen King stories into one tale, and Caplan's version of Annie follows her before she kidnaps her favorite author. She told Vulture that it was an interesting exercise, explaining that she took bits and pieces from Bates' performance while making something new. "I also didn't want to do a straight-up impression, which I don't even think I'd be able to do, and would probably be a bit of a cop-out," she pondered.

A few years later, Caplan played Alex Forrest, Glenn Close's role, in the 2023 miniseries based on "Fatal Attraction." As in "Castle Rock," Caplan had to honor the original portrayal while finding her own way through the material. After all, society's understanding of mental health has evolved significantly since the original film came out. "It's a thriller; she remains the bad guy," she explained. "But there's more to the story."

"Mean Girls" was released in 2004, meaning that it's basically been twenty years since we were first introduced to Janis Ian. Though she's had many other roles in the meantime, Janis continues to define Caplan's career in some ways, and she's not mad about it. After all, she showed the film to her husband on the occasion of its 15th anniversary. "We watched it and I was like, 'Yeah, I get it! This is a wonderful movie,'" she told Us Weekly.

A number of former "Mean Girls" stars have capitalized on nostalgia for the original film over the years, including much of the cast appearing together in a 2023 Black Friday ad campaign for Walmart. While Lindsay Lohan brought back Cady and Daniel Franzese reprised Janis's best friend Damian, Caplan was conspicuously absent from the commercials. That doesn't mean she's not up for bringing Janis back someday. "I would trust anything that Tina Fey would do," she told Access Hollywood. "It's not up to me!"