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"  This month marks the 10-year anniversary of Mean Girls&amp;#039;s release, and everyone \u2014 yes, everyone, even the North Shore burnouts \u2014 is using it as an excuse to indulge in their obsession. Daniel Franzese, who played your favorite Mean Girls showboat, Damian, understands. &amp;quot;The script was the funniest script I had ever read,&amp;quot; he told Cosmopolitan.com. &amp;quot;We were the first one of those [high-school] movies that also had the Internet. I mean, Mean Girls is dissected on the Internet.&amp;quot; Case in point: When Franzese posted an Instagram photo from a mini-reunion with Lindsay Lohan back in February, the blogosphere, this site included, had a little meltdown. &amp;quot;I was a little nervous about this interview,&amp;quot; Franzese said. &amp;quot;The only bad comment I read when that picture came out was from Cosmopolitan. Like, &amp;#039;Notice how Damian&amp;#039;s balding? It&amp;#039;s been ten years. DOESN&amp;#039;T THAT MAKE YOU FEEL OLD?&amp;#039; I was like, &amp;#039;Ew, you bitches.&amp;#039; You totally Regina George&amp;#039;d me.&amp;quot; Did you hear that?? Cosmo had a Mean Girls moment with Daniel Franzese! For the record, and with a sincere apology, Franzese is not balding. &amp;quot;It was the lighting, totally,&amp;quot; he said over the phone. &amp;quot;I still have my hair.&amp;quot; He also still has a ton of Mean Girls memories, which he happily set his pride aside to share with the world. Herewith, his stories of cast cliques, the weird fan who made him a needlepoint, and the actor who was almost cast in the movie: James Franco.  Cosmopolitan: What was your audition like?  \u2028Daniel Franzese: I sat in the waiting room in character as Damian, commenting on anything and everything I could. Amanda Seyfried had come in for her test and she was wondering aloud, &amp;quot;Should I wear this beige shirt or should I wear this maroon shirt?&amp;quot; Mark [Waters, the director] and Tina [Fey] had their backs to me, and I said, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d go with the merlot.&amp;quot; I don&amp;#039;t even know where that line came from, but they both whipped around and started laughing. They went on with the audition with Amanda and then the casting assistant said, &amp;quot;Hey, it&amp;#039;s your turn next.&amp;quot; I walked into the room, and Mark and Tina were like, &amp;quot;You?! We thought you worked here; we didn&amp;#039;t know you were auditioning. Now we&amp;#039;re excited \u2014 we like you!&amp;quot; It was a really great way to come in and [get noticed]. But then, according to the E! True Hollywood Story, (laughs) Mark said my audition wasn&amp;#039;t very good but that they just really liked me anyway. I was also told that there were some people who thought I was too old for the role \u2014 I was 26 and the role was 16. So I did everything I could to look as young as possible. There was this trick a friend taught me to get a really close shave, so I did that, and then I wore some kind of racy, funny T-shirt and just got really animated and excited \u2014 higher energy than I normally have as a person. You also auditioned for [Saturday Night Live creator and Mean Girls producer] Lorne Michaels \u2014 over dinner. What does Damian talk to Lorne about over an amuse bouche?\u2028  I was so nervous. I&amp;#039;ve always been a fan of Saturday Night Live, so I couldn&amp;#039;t believe I was going to meet Lorne Michaels. Then on my flight, I was seated in first class, a couple of seats away from Chevy Chase, which was so weird to me because I was about to go meet Lorne and [Chevy has] the whole SNL connection. I didn&amp;#039;t say anything on the plane, but then at the baggage claim I went up to him and I said, &amp;quot;So, I&amp;#039;m about to go to dinner tonight with Lorne Michaels: Do you have any advice for me?&amp;quot; He said, &amp;quot;Well, not really any advice, just tell him I said hi.&amp;quot; I thought, OK, this is my great opener. So at the dinner I said, &amp;quot;Hey, you know what&amp;#039;s really funny? On my ride here, I was on the plane with Chevy Chase!&amp;quot; Tina was like, &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;d he say? &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;m a jerk?&amp;#039;&amp;quot; And then the conversation immediately changed and I was like, &amp;quot;Nooo, I messed that one up!&amp;quot; I also met Lindsay [at the dinner], and Lacey Chabert, too. I hit it off with everyone and I remember leaving, saying, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ll see you all tomorrow at the table read. I&amp;#039;m the only one who doesn&amp;#039;t have the part yet.&amp;quot; Although Jonathan Bennett [who played Aaron Samuels] wasn&amp;#039;t cast yet either. There was another actor who was playing Aaron Samuels at the dinner. Now, the next day at the table read, this other actor hadn&amp;#039;t shaved and he didn&amp;#039;t take his hat off; he was playing it really cool. People kept coming over to him like, &amp;quot;You know, you should really take your hat off.&amp;quot; And then, right after the table read, he got fired and they called Jonathan Bennett, who I guess was their second choice. Can you please, please tell us who that actor was?\u2028  I don&amp;#039;t want to embarrass him, I&amp;#039;m afraid. He has worked consistently, he&amp;#039;s a good guy... but, yeah he is somebody who you would&amp;#039;ve known. Also, Lindsay recently told me that, even before [the actor who got fired], James Franco was considered for the role of Aaron Samuels. I thought that was so cool \u2014 Bennett was great but that would&amp;#039;ve been cool. You mentioned being older than your character, despite the shaving hacks. Did you ever feel out of place among the cast? Were there cliques?\u2028  Slightly. Amanda was 17 and so was Lindsay. Lindsay and I get along way better now as adults than we did when she was a kid; back then I just felt like, &amp;quot;Oh here&amp;#039;s this kid,&amp;quot; you know? I actually didn&amp;#039;t know who she was \u2014 to me she wasn&amp;#039;t really on the grid yet, except for that whole Aaron Carter thing. I hadn&amp;#039;t seen Parent Trap or Freaky Friday, I had only heard about them. It wasn&amp;#039;t negative, though. Lizzy Caplan and I really stuck together on that shoot.   Definitely Lizzy and I were a clique \u2014 there&amp;#039;s no question about that. We were always laughing, always in each other&amp;#039;s trailers, always in each other&amp;#039;s hotel rooms. Inseparable, really. Amanda and Lacey hung out a lot; Lindsay did her own thing. She had a guardian and two young friends with her and they all hung out a lot. Really, it was Lizzy and I rolling solo.  How about Tina Fey and Amy Poehler: Were they the &amp;quot;cool moms&amp;quot; on set?\u2028  Tina was still the head writer of SNL so she was back and forth between the set [in Toronto] and New York, and Amy was still on SNL as well. They would come in Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for the film, and go back Thursday, Friday, and Saturday to prep for the SNL broadcast. But when they were in town we did hang out. We hung out with Amy a lot; Tina isn&amp;#039;t crazy about flying, so they would drive her in from New York. And Amy would just go on Lorne&amp;#039;s jet so she&amp;#039;d get in sooner and just be around a lot more. The wrap party was insane \u2014 it was karaoke. I just remember singing &amp;quot;Love Shack&amp;quot; with Amy, and later me and Lizzy doing back up for her on Eminem songs. How about Rachel McAdams? She was the same age as you guys, right?\u2028  Yeah, it&amp;#039;s funny because Amy Poehler was less than a decade older than Rachel McAdams when she was playing her mom. Rachel&amp;#039;s a really humble person. When we would all go out, Rachel would just stay home. Her agents would come to set and she wouldn&amp;#039;t go to dinner with them, she was just like, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m going to chill.&amp;quot; She didn&amp;#039;t want to do interviews, she wasn&amp;#039;t very Hollywood \u2014 she was just an actor. And I remember one time a group of us went out shopping in Toronto, we went to go get a drink, and we walked into this bar and Rachel was just there, chilling by herself. She was like, &amp;quot;Oh, I&amp;#039;m having a beer.&amp;quot; Really low-key and normal; a cool, down-to-earth chick. How long did you guys shoot for?\u2028  I want to say it was a little over two months. We all spent Halloween together and we spent Thanksgiving together. What did you all dress up as for Halloween? Please tell me someone was a sexy mouse.  I know that Jonathan Bennett was Peter Pan.  I don&amp;#039;t really remember being fully dressed up, though, because our Halloween party was in a hotel room. And we still had to work every day. What were some of your favorite scenes to film?\u2028  The &amp;quot;I want my pink shirt back&amp;quot; line was one of my favorites from the movie. I came up with it during rehearsal; we were rehearsing driving around the cul-de-sac and I asked Mark if I could say, &amp;quot;I want my pink shirt back, bitch.&amp;quot; He said, &amp;quot;Sure, say it twice and real fast like George Costanza in Seinfeld,&amp;quot;and he let me run with it. So that was really fun. I loved the &amp;quot;You go Glen Coco&amp;quot; line when I was dressed in the Santa costume, too. At first, Tina said I should talk in my normal voice, not a &amp;quot;Santa voice,&amp;quot; but I said I had to [use a Santa voice] or they&amp;#039;ll know it&amp;#039;s Damian! I also had a lot of fun with the &amp;quot;She doesn&amp;#039;t even go here&amp;quot; moment, from the scene with all the girl students in the auditorium. I just thought that was such a funny line, I could barely even handle it, I was just cracking up. There were so many funny lines to look forward to. Were there moments where you couldn&amp;#039;t even get through the lines because they were so sharp? Are there lots of bloopers we haven&amp;#039;t seen yet?\u2028  Well, here&amp;#039;s one scene: When I sang &amp;quot;Beautiful,&amp;quot; when the camera was on me, the only person in the audience was my mom. When [the camera] turns around and you see the back of me and the whole audience, that was filmed the next day.   In fact, my mom actually reminded me that Mark Waters had caught up to her and showed her the fake shoe that they threw at me. It was made out of a kind of Nerf gun pellet-type foam, and he explained, &amp;quot;So, when we hit him in the face, it&amp;#039;s not going to hurt. I just want to show you he&amp;#039;s not being hurt,&amp;quot; to my mom. I didn&amp;#039;t really know the song &amp;quot;Beautiful&amp;quot; before I sang it, actually, so they gave me the CD. When I first listened to it, there&amp;#039;s that line where Christina says, &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t look at me&amp;quot; before she starts singing. I thought, Oh my god, I have to do that for real. The idea of that just made me so excited, and when I mentioned it to Tina she just said, &amp;quot;Of course, of course.&amp;quot; That moment where I say the line and she looks away at the piano, that all came from when I started listening to the song.  Were there lots of opportunities to improvise?\u2028  You know, it&amp;#039;s not a common privilege for actors who aren&amp;#039;t really celebrities yet. Also, when a studio films a movie, every inch of film rolling costs an extra dollar, so for Mark to be that open and that free with us, it was really excellent. I can&amp;#039;t speak for everybody, but Lizzy and I had a lot of freedom. Most of our scenes were together, and we would sit around and come up with the ideas for how we were going to act out stuff. It was a lot of fun. Are there particular lines or moments that fans tell you they identify with the most?\u2028  On social media, I&amp;#039;m WhatsUpDanny, and there&amp;#039;s this hashtag #DanFranFans on Twitter. These people are, in the best way, crazy. There are even lines [from the movie] that aren&amp;#039;t funny that are made funny by fans. Like, they&amp;#039;ll find any way to work a Mean Girls mention into the conversation. And for the past decade, it doesn&amp;#039;t matter where I am, it happens. I actually have removed the color pink from my wardrobe completely. I&amp;#039;ll be like, &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s really nice, but it&amp;#039;s pink so I can&amp;#039;t wear it.&amp;quot; Because people yell that stuff on the street to me all the time. I adore fans, though; I think that they&amp;#039;re awesome. Because I know exactly what it&amp;#039;s like to be a fan. I didn&amp;#039;t get into the entertainment industry until I was 23 and I&amp;#039;ve had the fortunate blessing in my career to work with many people who I was a fan of before I met them. So I understand fandom and I embrace it. My favorite thing that&amp;#039;s come out of Mean Girls fans is fan art. Somebody made me a &amp;quot;she doesn&amp;#039;t even go here&amp;quot; needle point piece with a little image of my face in the corner.   I met her at a diner in New York City to pick it up, she had hit me up on Instagram, and it was on a Wednesday. She was wearing pink and she ordered cheese fries. I said something like, &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s literally nothing cuter than you right now,&amp;quot; obviously, and she was so excited and I just love that. Also, the second best thing is every year \u2014 well this past year \u2014 I think I counted something like 72 people tweeting pictures at me of them dressed up as Damian for Halloween. They wear the blue hoodie with the glasses; it&amp;#039;s like the best instant Halloween costume, and I try to always retweet or favorite people who do that because it&amp;#039;s such a blessing that people still identify with this movie so many years later. As a gay guy coming out of high school around the time Mean Girls premiered, seeing Damian own his sexuality was really empowering to me. Do you get a response from LGBT fans in particular?\u2028  It&amp;#039;s funny that you say that \u2014 not to take away from the power that Damian has contributed to that kind of thing, but Mark&amp;#039;s whole position on Damian was that Damian probably doesn&amp;#039;t realize he&amp;#039;s gay yet. I mean, he knows deep down, but he&amp;#039;s still going through puberty and figuring it all out. He hadn&amp;#039;t dated anyone yet; he probably hasn&amp;#039;t kissed anyone yet. And I just think that sweet spot of vulnerability was something that made that character real. That moment of a kid in high school who just didn&amp;#039;t care what people thought about him. I like to say I&amp;#039;m the legendary father of the House of Glen Coco. Anything that shines a little light on anyone who&amp;#039;s feeling left out in any way, I am just beyond proud to contribute to that in any way \u2014 even if it&amp;#039;s accidentally. So where would Damian be today; what&amp;#039;s he doing ten years down the line? Is he still fabulous?\u2028  Well, Damian is the one character in Mean Girls who&amp;#039;s based on someone real. Damian is based off of Damian Holbrook, this writer for TV Guide magazine who was Tina&amp;#039;s best friend in high school. So I think he&amp;#039;d be doing something like that, writing pop culture news. There&amp;#039;s actually a deleted scene from Mean Girls \u2014 the original ending shows what happened to Damian after [junior year], and he was going to audition for American Idol. Simon Cowell was going to call him chubby and then he was going to run up on the stage and punch him. Can we see that footage?!\u2028  No no, we never filmed it. There was actually a complete alternate ending to the movie. In the original script that I read, Kevin G. gets busted by Miss Norbury for selling ecstasy \u2014 so when they call her a drug pusher she actually has drugs in her desk, [because] she took them away from Kevin G. Janis and Damian convince Kevin G. to go to the school board when they discuss her punishment to confess that it was him, but Kevin G never shows up. So Damian gets on the podium and kind of bullshits his way through saying it was him to try to protect Miss Norbury. Were there other changes to the script?\u2028  I remember at one point Janice was going to do some deep, meaningful poetry while playing the drums at the talent show. And I know I had another line that I think was so funny that didn&amp;#039;t make it in: I was smoking a cigarette when we were walking across the field to go sit on like the grass. Cady says to Damian, &amp;quot;You know, you really shouldn&amp;#039;t smoke,&amp;quot; and Damian goes, &amp;quot;But it keeps me thin.&amp;quot; It was so painful to let that line go, but Mark doesn&amp;#039;t like his actors smoking in movies, which is admirable. Are you still in touch with your fellow mean girls? Do you have plans to mark the anniversary together, maybe with a group outing to a Ladysmith Black Mambazo concert?\u2028  There&amp;#039;s been talks of trying to figure out schedules for all of us to get together for something, but everyone&amp;#039;s so busy. I do talk to Lizzy and I talk to Lacey pretty often. I talk to Lindsay; every time I see Amanda, it&amp;#039;s great. We run into each other more than we make plans with each other. Amy Poehler as well, because I&amp;#039;m really good friends with Aubrey Plaza so I&amp;#039;ve visited the Parks and Rec set a bunch. Diego Klattenhoff, who played Shane Oman, he and I became really close when he was in L.A. before Homeland,so we hung out a lot. Also, I reconnected with Rajiv [Surendra, who played Kevin G.] after I took that infamous Instagram picture with Lindsay a couple of months ago.  How did the reunion with Lindsay come together?\u2028  Well, we see each other around Hollywood. Hollywood is high school, it&amp;#039;s no different. I went to high school in Fort Lauderdale, for example, and if I went to the waterfront in Fort Lauderdale I would always run into someone I went to school with, and I think it&amp;#039;s kind of like that here in Hollywood, too. If you go out to a hot spot you&amp;#039;re going to see everyone eventually. So Lindsay and I would bump into each each other over the years and it was always cordial.  Then last fall I went to the Marco Marco fashion show at L.A. Fashion Week, because he&amp;#039;s a great friend of mine \u2014 and they sat Lindsay on the front row four seats down from me. I hadn&amp;#039;t seen her in like two or three years at all; of course all the blogs ran with, &amp;quot;Look, the Mean Girls reunion that almost happened.&amp;quot; But we exchanged numbers while we were there \u2014 we were texting during the show and then we began a text friendship, which has led to us hanging out again and being friends. And are Cady and Damian still friends, too? Please tell me she&amp;#039;s working in the accounting department at TV Guide or something, so they can get lunch together.\u2028  Are you just going to keep throwing this fan fiction at me? I&amp;#039;m kidding, kidding, I love it. You have a good point. OK, what are your real-life projects at the moment?   I&amp;#039;ve just directed my first feature documentary, it&amp;#039;s called Allee Willis Loves Detroit \u2014 there&amp;#039;s a sneak peak on YouTube now, actually. We&amp;#039;re working on editing, and we&amp;#039;re hoping to festival it this fall. I&amp;#039;m also in a new Broadway show, a musical called FOUND based on Found magazine. It&amp;#039;s currently in the workshop stage but it should open some time off Broadway in the fall also. The idea is that there&amp;#039;s all these notes, letters, and homework assignments \u2014 anything that people have lost that someone else has found, and then they&amp;#039;re put into one book together [like they do in the magazine], and we have all these great people singing the different parts as we go along. I&amp;#039;m really excited about it because I went into this business thinking I was going to be in musical theater. Back in 2011, I wrote a musical \u2014 based on Jersey Shore \u2014 just because I was so sick of not having the opportunity to be in one. And then we won at the New York Fringe Festival. Since then I&amp;#039;ve been getting all of these offers for [theater projects] and it&amp;#039;s just been amazing for me.  But you&amp;#039;re still a Mean Girls nerd too, which is important.\u2028  Of course! I mean, sometimes it&amp;#039;s not the easiest thing to go out \u2014 first of all I&amp;#039;m 6-foot-4, so if I&amp;#039;m in a crowd, my head is a foot above everyone else&amp;#039;s. It doesn&amp;#039;t matter where I am; you know it&amp;#039;s me. I don&amp;#039;t really blend. And sometimes it&amp;#039;s nerve-wracking. I can be talking to someone in a bar and it&amp;#039;s chill, and then they&amp;#039;re like, &amp;quot;YOU GO GLEN COCO!&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;m like, &amp;quot;Ugh, you just blew up my spot.&amp;quot; But the good things way outweigh the problems. It&amp;#039;s been such a wonderful experience; it&amp;#039;s such a blessing, because when you work really hard at a career in this business and people feel like you&amp;#039;ve done something that entertained them, there&amp;#039;s just no better reward.  This interview has been edited and condensed. Follow Alex on Twitter. Photo credit: Frazer Harrison / Getty Images "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/news/a6382/daniel-franzese-mean-girls-interview/>