Reneé Rapp on writing a song for Mean Girls: 'A crossover of every career that I have'

When Reneé Rapp decided to reprise her Broadway role of Regina George in the new Mean Girls musical movie, it was already a huge deal for her career. And that was before she knew she'd be creating a credits song with Megan Thee Stallion and co-writing one of the film's musical numbers.

"The first time Cady [Angourie Rice] sings in the movie has always been the hardest song, even when we were trying to put Mean Girls on stage," says composer Jeff Richmond, who helped launch Mean Girls on Broadway in 2018 before working on the latest film adaptation. "We had written a lot of different songs for Cady to open the movie. When we were in tryouts, there was a thing called 'Wildlife' and there was 'It Roars' on Broadway. And then we wrote a couple of versions of that for the movie."

When none of those were working, about a month before they started filming the movie, Richmond had an idea: "It was over Christmas and I said, 'Let's see if Reneé is interested in writing something.'"

Rapp, who successfully launched her own music career in recent years, jumped at the opportunity. "I was really excited because I think that's something, as a songwriter, that you dream about," Rapp says. "I also really respect Jeff and [screenwriter] Tina [Fey] and our whole team, but especially our music team. I was like, 'Oh, wow, I really feel respected by you guys and you didn't have to do that, and I feel very touched, which makes me want to be so much better.' I was really, really excited."

According to Richmond, Rapp was able to contribute "really lovely, youthful lyrics" to help build the song in a new way, creating "What Ifs," which is what audiences will hear Angourie Rice's Cady sing when the movie begins. And for Rapp, she's walking away with more than she expected from the experience.

"This is a crossover of every career that I have in my life," Rapp says. "We have the song with Megan, so there's my pop music that's a part of the movie. There's also my theatrical songs that are a part of the movie. There's also now new and original songs that we've written for the film, and also I'm acting again. It's literally everything I do, all in one project."

Mean Girls hits theaters this Friday.

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