Christopher Briney Dishes On The Mean Girls Cast Group Chat

The Plastics are getting a 2024 makeover in the highly-anticipated Mean Girls reboot, out Jan. 11. Just like in the iconic 2004 film, Cady Heron will be welcomed to North Shore High School by queen bee Regina George — and make the mistake of falling for Regina’s ex-boyfriend Aaron Samuels (played by Christopher Briney) — but Briney says fans can expect a fresh take on the storyline. For one, the students will be more dialed into social media.

“The world [of Mean Girls] has changed and grown, and it’s a little different,” Briney tells Elite Daily in an exclusive interview through Uber. The 25-year-old actor calls the new Tina Fey film a “completely new” hybrid of the OG movie and the Tony Award winning musical that was inspired by it.

While Reneé Rapp — who starred in the Broadway show alongside Kyle Selig — will be reprising her role as Regina George and singing songs from the musical, Briney’s Aaron will be more similar to the original football star. The Summer I Turned Pretty actor admits he was initially “terrified” he’d have to duet alongside the “Pretty Girls” pop star, but Aaron’s singing parts were cut before he booked the role.

If I tried to sing at all around these people, I would have been embarrassed.

“I think there was a version where [Aaron] was singing at the end of a song with Regina, but he doesn’t sing anymore, so I got lucky. If I tried to sing at all around these people, I would have been embarrassed,” he says.

The Connecticut-born actor wasn’t involved in the singing and dancing scenes, but he says he found the “grind really inspiring” to watch from those performers. “They were on 100%, 24 hours a day, five days, sometimes six days a week. [Auli’i Cravalho (Janis Ian)] was in this scene, and I saw her doing her thing and I was like, ‘Holy mother of God, she’s really good...’ I was like, ‘I got to step it up.’”

Other differences can be attributed to the 2024 movie being set two decades after the Lindsay Lohan- and Rachel McAdams-led film. Briney hints that some scenes from the original movie, like Cady’s three-way phone calls with Regina, Karen, and Gretchen, might not be in this version of Mean Girls.

“I mean, the way [this movie] uses technology and social media is really different,” he says. “You don’t have to call your friend on the house phone when you get home. You can be texting them all day, and information is buzzing all over the place all the time.”

While viewers will have to wait to find out what goes down in the Plastics chat, the actor is happy to give fans a sneak peek at the Mean Girls cast group text — and the thread is not as spicy as you might expect. Pulling up the last text on his phone, Briney says, “People were sharing their press day outfits... Oh, lovely. Reneé was late to an interview, so the last thing that was sent as a selfie of all of us being like, ‘Where are you? It’s at 10:30 today.’”

Even though Briney doesn’t text his castmates every day, he says he has “nothing but love” for them. “We’re filming press stuff this weekend, so I’ve gotten to see them all week, which has been lovely,” he says. “It’s really exciting to see people that you had such an intense month with, and then you take time and live your lives and you come back, and you feel closer. They’re wonderful, though. They’re so sweet. I love them all.”