In 2002, Rachel McAdams made her feature film debut in The Hot Chick, a Rob Schneider film that critics widely hated. Not the best start for anyone, yet McAdams soon rebounded in 2004 with the dual releases of Mean Girls and The Notebook. Since then, McAdams has become one of the biggest names in Hollywood, appearing in a wide array of beloved films like Wedding Crashers, Sherlock Holmes, the Oscar-winning Spotlight, Doctor Strange, and Game Night, to name a few. Yet it is hard to argue that any of those films have loomed larger over pop culture and McAdams’ own career than Mean Girls and The Notebook.
Mean Girls opened on May 30, 2004, with The Notebook hitting theaters on June 25, almost exactly two months later. Many actors have had years when they release multiple hit films in the same year, but the fact that McAdams’ two most iconic movies opened in the same year so close together is special.
Showcased McAdam’s Talents
What is striking about Mean Girls and The Notebook is how vastly different McAdams’ characters are. In Mean Girls, McAdams plays Regina George, the ultimate popular girl with a cruel, dark side hidden behind blonde hair and a bright smile. Despite being a relatively unknown star at the time, she dominates the screen. The audience immediately believes she overpowers and threatens her more established co-star, Lindsay Lohan. In a cast full of great performances from now legendary stars like Lizzy Caplan, Amanda Seyfried, and Lacey Chabert, along with Lohan, McAdams is the scene-stealer.
This is in sharp contrast to The Notebook, where her character, Allison “Allie” Calhoun, is the complete opposite of Regina George. The ultimate girl next door, Allie, is approachable and down-to-earth, a sharp contrast to the apex predator of high school, Regina George. McAdams’ signature smile for Regina George highlights a dark ambition; meanwhile, Allie displays a ray of sunshine that sells the audience on Ryan Gosling’s character Noah’s unhealthy obsession with her.
Aside from different hair colors, McAdams transforms herself into two distinct characters with little need for showy visual signifiers. You believe her as a teenager in Mean Girls, while The Notebook easily sells the same actress as a young woman in two films that came out two months apart. McAdams puts more emphasis on her words as Regina, giving her a more cutting diction, while Allie has a naturalistic form of speaking.
Combined with great costume designs for both characters, McAdams’ physicality displays the difference between them by how they hold themselves. Regina is always upright and looking down on others, while Allie goes from pent-up early on to a freer person later, symbolized by her relationship with Noah. Regina George and Allie Calhoun are vastly different characters that, when combined, show McAdams’ range as a performer.
‘Mean Girls’ and ‘The Notebook’s Box Office Performance Was Not the End of the Story
Everyone knows both Mean Girls and The Notebook were box office hits. With a $22 million opening weekend, Mean Girls made back its $17 million budget in three days and went on to gross $86.1 million domestic and $130 million worldwide. The Notebook was a sleeper hit, only opening at number 4 at the box office and largely overshadowed by that week’s big release, Spider-Man 2. Yet word of mouth propelled the film to box office success, bringing in $81 million domestically and $113 million worldwide against a $29 million budget.
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Both films were hits, but neither of them was the highest-grossing film of their year. In fact, they weren’t even in the domestic top 25. Mean Girls ranked #28 that year, while The Notebook ranked #32, just behind Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. Yet both Mean Girls and The Notebook endured far beyond many other 2004 films of the era, thanks to positive word of mouth. This carried through onto home video and made them not just cult classics but full-blown parts of the cinematic canon. By 2010, The Notebook was reported to have sold 10 million DVD copies.
The Legacy of ‘Mean Girls’, ‘The Notebook’, and Rachel McAdams’ Career
Mean Girls and The Notebook continue to speak to audiences after all this time, and both films even got musical adaptations. Mean Girls opened in 2017 and closed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Notebook began workshop performances in 2019 and opened on Broadway from March 2024 to December 2024, and is about to embark on a North American tour.
Mean Girls is regarded as one of the best teen comedies of all time, with quotes like “Stop trying to make fetch happen,” “You go, Glen Coco,” and “She doesn’t even go here,” just a small sample of the iconic lines that have become part of the cultural zeitgeist. People wear pink on Wednesday because of the film, and October 3 is now forever linked with Mean Girls. To celebrate Mean Girls‘ 20th anniversary, Paramount Pictures released a film adaptation of the Broadway musical Mean Girls, positioning it as a remake for a new generation.
The Notebook itself is just as popular, if not more popular. The movie is now regarded as one of the romantic films of all time, and from 2005 to 2012, The Notebook was a must-watch date night movie for couples or friends wanting to have a good cry together. In addition to Rachel McAdams, it made Ryan Gosling a leading actor. Two of author Nicholas Sparks’ novels, A Message in a Bottle and A Walk to Remember, had opened before The Notebook. But the box office sensation of The Notebook led to a slew of films based on the works of Nicholas Sparks.
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There is, of course, Rachel McAdams’ career. With The Notebook coming out after Mean Girls, McAdams never played a teenager again and instead became a must-have romantic leading lady. In 2005, she co-starred as Owen Wilson’s love interest in the box-office smash hit Wedding Crashers. McAdams became a high-profile romance star, with titles like The Time Traveler’s Wife, The Vow, and About Time (which is criminally underrated, by the way).
Yet McAdams also controls her career. Instead of overexposing herself, she took a hiatus between 2006 and 2007. She passed on high-profile films like Iron Man, Mission: Impossible 3, Casino Royale, Get Smart, The Dark Knight, and The Devil Wears Prada. Instead, McAdams’ work includes Terrance Malick’s To the Wonder, the Academy Award-winning Best Picture Spotlight, and the underrated but masterful Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
McAdams will likely always be known for her signature roles in Mean Girls and The Notebook. For an actor to have two iconic film performances is a lot to ask for, but for them to be released in the same year is an honor McAdams can hold onto forever.
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