She’s a Gem
Angourie Rice is the nicest girl in town… even if she plays a Mean Girl in the movies.

At the end of the new musical Mean Girls, Angourie Rice looks into the camera and surrenders her teen angst into a smile. “Rhinestones don’t shine the way you do,” she sings in the closing girl power anthem,
“I See Stars,” continuing, “We are so real. We are so rare.”

The same realness and rareness apply to natural diamonds, of course—and to Angourie Rice herself. She began her “rare” existence as a New Year’s baby, born on January 1 in Sydney, Australia. (Her name, also rare, is taken from a village in New South Wales. “It rhymes,” she says laughing, “with flowery!”) The daughter of a screenwriter and a director, Rice began acting on beloved kids shows like Mako Mermaids before landing Hollywood roles as Ryan Gosling’s daughter in The Nice Guys and Nicole Kidman’s pupil in The Beguiled. Her critically acclaimed turn as Kate Winslet’s troubled daughter on Mare of Easttown showed a fierce side of Rice that was as unbreakable as a diamond itself. Now as the star of Mean Girls—the first box office blockbuster of 2024—Rice is proving she’s also a precious gem for fans and industry insiders alike.

Rice gets to wear natural diamonds quite a bit more now, too. Her love affair with the stone began in earnest at the Cannes Film Festival in 2017, when she attended alongside Sofia Coppola and Kirsten Dunst. “I normally like very simple jewelry, but I understood this was a big deal, so I would need something more dramatic. I wore an Armani gown and these incredible diamond earrings by Chopard,” she says. “They were on loan, and they came with their own security guard! They showed me the earrings, plus a matching bracelet and this incredible ring. I actually love stacking rings in my normal life; some with stones and some not, but this ring was so stunning, it deserved to have its own moment… The earrings were incredible. I felt so glamorous and almost royal.”

With the release of Mean Girls, Rice becomes a different type of royalty—official Spring Fling Queen and unofficial Queen Bee of North Shore High School, ruling lunch tables and keg parties as the nice-girl-turned-usurper Cady Heron. The role has cemented Rice’s status as a new Hollywood ingénue, with a seasoned red carpet stylist (Sarah Slutsky, who also works with Rachel Zegler and Jessica Williams), outfits by runway greats like Thom Browne and Michael Kors, and nearly a million Instagram followers, which Rice cheerfully admits is “still shocking to me.” But despite her steadily climbing career, Rice admits she almost turned down the role of Cady, even though Tina Fey emailed the actress herself to ask if she’d play the part.

Why the reluctance? Blame another iconic film franchise, Spider-Man. Rice played a supporting role in the Tom Holland reboots, but despite Marvel’s box office superpowers, “I didn’t really think about how big it would be,” Rice admits. “I was just so excited to be in a great movie! It wasn’t until I got to the premiere that I was like, ‘Oh. Ohhh. This is huge.’ It did feel a little overwhelming.” With Mean Girls, the 23-year-old was more wary. “I knew there would be a lot of eyes on it. And Spider-Man was a very supporting role, but Cady in Mean Girls? That’s a whole different thing.”

Rice asked Team Fey if she could have a week to sing through the movie’s key songs and check out the script. She realized the musical numbers, including a certified bop called “Stupid in Love” that could be an Ingrid Michaelson pop hit on its own, were “so much fun to sing. Like, I’d do them, and I couldn’t stop smiling.” Then Rice took her dog for a walk… and that’s how she ended up as Cady Heron. No, really.

“I promise, I wasn’t telling the whole of Australia that I might be Cady Heron!” she exclaims. “But I love talking to my friends and neighbors about my work, because they have no stake in the film industry. They have no biases against certain studios or directors or anything. They’re just people who live next door, and we walk our dogs together, and I’m like, ‘Well, what if I do Mean Girls?’ And they’re like, ‘You seem to be really excited about it. Why wouldn’t you do it?’ Ultimately, I realized, I was the one keeping myself from a really great adventure. So, I came to my senses and said yes.”

The experience put Rice alongside Mean Girls’ original superstar, Lindsay Lohan, both figuratively and literally. (In the worst-kept Hollywood secret since Brangelina, Lohan makes a nifty cameo in the movie; she also appeared with Rice at the movie’s 2024 premiere in Manhattan.) “We don’t know each other at all,” Rice insists, “But we’ve been inside the mind of the same character. We’ve dropped ourselves into the same situation—her, me, and Erika [Henningsen, who originated the role of Cady on Broadway]… At some point in our lives, we’ve all answered to the name Cady, which is something that your brain does unconsciously, and sometimes I can’t unwire it for months. When people say Siobhann,” Rice’s character from the acclaimed 2021 drama Mare of Easttown, “I still turn around, even though we filmed it two years ago.” Oddly, Rice and Henningson will soon play sisters in the short film Loser. Like natural diamonds, the ties that bind Cady Heron seem to be forever.

But though she’s famous for being Mean onscreen, it’s all just a (literal) act. During her shoot for Only Natural Diamonds, Rice embodied the “real, rare, responsible” creed and requested that only cruelty-free cosmetics be used on-set, along with solely vegan food and clothes created with ethical practices. “Kindness is always the most important thing,” she says, noting that her red carpet fashion and beauty looks have likewise been carefully chosen with Slutsky to celebrate well-made and long-lasting designs. (She even called her Thom Browne dachshund bag by its puppy name, “Hector.”)

As we finish our conversation, Rice is wrapping up a week in New York with fellow Mean Girls “Plastics” Reneé Rapp, Avantika Vandanapu, and Bebe Wood. She calls her girl-on-girl crime crew “amazing” and you can tell she truly means it. But when I ask who her rock—or maybe her natural diamond—in Hollywood is, she’s quick to name a mentor from Gen X, not Gen Z. “Jennifer Garner is a total diamond to me,” says Rice, who worked with the movie star in the recent Hulu thriller The Last Thing She Told Me.

“You see her on social media and doing all these silly cute videos. But it’s not an act—that’s just who she is! She’s a completely and unabashedly kind and generous person. She’s a mother and a caretaker, to not just me, but everyone around her, but not in a way that was patronizing at all. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I’ve been in the industry for so long; let me tell you how it’s done.’ It was like, ‘I want to care for you and support you. But I also understand that you will tell me what you need.’ She also understands the crew members’ jobs in a way that many actors just don’t. She has such respect and appreciation for them, and so much trust in their work. “I just loved working with her so much. She’s a true diamond for sure. We need all of those we can get.”

It’s time for Rice to head to the airport and back to her native Australia, where she’ll soon get to work on her next project—but it’s not a movie. Instead, she’s co-writing her second book with her mother, Kate Rice, a playwright, and screenwriter. Their first young adult novel, Stuck Up and Stupid, debuted in November of 2023; it’s a send-up of Pride and Prejudice set in an idyllic and low-key beach town that’s invaded by vacationing (and high-maintenance) movie stars. “Jane Austen is so conducive to YA, and to stories about Hollywood, because Hollywood is just a place where people are well-known and rich,” Rice says, giggling. “And that’s what Jane Austen’s books are about are about, too!”

“You know, I once saw a meme that was a one-star star review of Pride and Prejudice,” she continues. “It said, ‘One star: This book is just people going to other people’s houses.’ Which is so true. But in my mind, that’s what makes it five stars. That’s the most interesting, fun thing ever. Just go hang out at your friends’ house.” And if you happen to be wearing diamonds… well… Rice won’t mind. She might even write you into her next big Hollywood story.

Source: naturaldiamonds.com

The new girl

For a while now, Angourie Rice has been on the fringes of stardom, with supporting roles in ‘Mare of Easttown’ and the ‘Spider-Man’ films. But as the lead in the new version of iconic ten comedy ‘Mean Girls,’ she’s just moved to centre stage.

Words by JANE ALBERT. Photography by SIMON EELES. Styling by KARLA CLARKE

WHEN ANGOURIE RICE was in the early years of primary school in Perth, she and her younger sister, Kalliope, had three DVDs they would watch on high rotation: High School Musical 2, The Sound of Music — and Mean Girls. The girls’ parents both worked in the theatre, so after-school hours were typically spent poring over their portable DVD player in the corner of a theatre or tech rehearsal room, watching and re-watching their favourite films. “Mean Girls is one of the movies I know really, really well because I watched it so many times,” Rice says today. “We owned the DVD and that was rare because most of them we borrowed from the DVD store.”

That worn-out DVD has certainly proved its worth. Fast forward 17-odd years and Rice, now an acclaimed international film actress, is performing the lead role in the highly anticipated Mean Girls remake. An adaptation of the Tony Award-nominated musical based on the original 2004 film (yes, that’s a mouthful), Mean Girls stars Rice as naïve new student Cady Heron alongside queen mean girl Regina George (Reneé Rapp, who starred in the Broadway musical), love interest Aaron Samuels (Christopher Briney) and a cast that includes original members Tina Fey and Tim Meadows.

Rice is still pinching herself for landing the role made famous by Lindsay Lohan, in a film that was seminal to her youth. “I get quite excited by these films that feel connected to my childhood, like Barbie, so to be in it feels very surreal, especially when I think if my life had taken a completely different path, and I wasn’t an actor, I would be going to the movies the day it came out and seeing it.”

Due to the Hollywood strike that prevented actors speaking to the press, it has taken seven long months to connect with Rice. But, finally, here she is, zooming in from her Airbnb in Los Angeles, where she’s been doing long-lead press for Mean Girls. Dressed casually in a pale red cotton jumper, hair loose and make-up free, Rice proves to be articulate, intelligent and fascinating company, thanking me for my patience in waiting until the strike was resolved and sending a personal message to my fangirl daughter: “Tell Annie I say hi, I hope she enjoys Mean Girls, I think it’s going to be really fun, really fun,” she enthuses.

Mean Girls caps off a frantically busy few years for the 23-year-old. Last year alone Rice starred in The Last Thing He Told Me opposite Jennifer Garner for Apple+; made her mainstage theatre debut in Melbourne Theatre Company’s (MTC) My Sister Jill and launched her debut novel Stuck Up & Stupid, which she co-wrote with her mother, Kate. In 2022, she played the titular role of Honor in feature film Honor Society opposite Stranger Things’ Gaten Matarazzo; and Rebel Wilson’s younger self in Senior Year, for Netflix. This followed the critically acclaimed series Mare of Easttown, starring Emmy Award-winner Kate Winslet and Rice as Winslet’s headstrong teen daughter, Siobhan, in 2021, the same year she was named one of Variety’s 10 actors to watch. You may also recognise her from Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise playing Betty Brant opposite Zendaya (No Way Home, Far From Home and Homecoming).

But despite the roll call of stars and screen titles Rice has already notched up, her feet remain firmly planted on the ground. Given Rice’s father, Jeremy, is a director and keen photographer, and Kate a writer and musician, she’s spent her life thus far happily immersed in theatre and the arts, initially in Perth, where actors would regularly rehearse in the Rice living room, and later in Melbourne.

“All throughout my childhood I loved being around and watching performers. I’d go home and recite the lines and put on shows for my parents and drag my sister into them for dance shows and singing shows and plays. It was my whole life,” says Rice, who’s named after a revered surfing beach in northern New South Wales.

Rice made her screen debut aged 11 in Australian Zak Hilditch’s short film Transmission and she’s never looked back, going on to perform alongside Ryan Gosling in The Nice Guys and Nicole Kidman in Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled. Given the tender age at which she started there was never any time — or perhaps need — for formal training. And yet, like a bower bird carefully watching and picking up precious kernels, Rice is continually observing and learning both acting skills and life lessons.

This was certainly the case when shooting Mare of Easttown, a brilliant, dark and gritty series dealing with murder, grief and substance abuse. Rice found herself struggling to shake her troubled character Siobhan in the many long hours and days she wasn’t required on set. Sensing her unease, Winslet made a point of supporting her through a tricky intimate scene in a car where Siobhan shares her first kiss with her female love interest. As Rice has revealed previously, Winslet offered to hide in the car boot so she could help coordinate the scene and guide the young Australian, who’s the same age as Winslet’s daughter.

“What’s amazing about both Kate Winslet and Jennifer Garner is they’re so willing to extend kindness and generosity to new or younger people in the industry and provide protection and guidance that they don’t have to, but they want to, because they’re kind people. It makes such a difference to me to feel truly protected by the lead of the show.”

Rice also praises Rachel Perkins, who was shadowed by a young woman interested in becoming a filmmaker when Perkins directed Australian feature film Jasper Jones. “The role of director is so hard because people always want answers from you, but Rachel took the time to guide her on set, show her the script, show her a shot list, talk about how she goes about her day as director, because Rachel knew that was important. That kindness really stuck with me.”

Rice makes a point of seeking out female-led projects (Reese Witherspoon’s female narrative-focused production company Hello Sunshine helmed The Last Thing He Told Me, which was co-written by Laura Dave and executive-produced by Garner, for example) and it was no different with her recent mainstage debut in the MTC’s My Sister Jill, written by esteemed local playwright Patricia Cornelius and directed by Susie Dee. Again, it proved a masterclass in learning the craft of stage acting, given all six fellow actors had been to drama school; but it also forced Rice to confront her intense stage fright.

This year is a BLANK SLATE because the strike HALTED so many things and I didn’t have anything lined up pre-strike. I feel VERY PEACEFUL about it

“I got the job in mid-2022 and would be falling asleep at night then think, Oh, my God, I have to do that play, and feel physically sick about it in the months leading up to it,” Rice says. “I remember standing backstage before our first preview thinking, I don’t know if I can do this. I was shaking. I felt sick. I just felt I couldn’t do it. But I did, and I’m so proud of myself because it felt like such a fear that I got through. And now that it’s done, I’m like, I could never do that again.” Okay . . . but would she do another stage play or musical? “Yes, absolutely, I really would!” she says, without skipping a beat.

After some of the darker series she’s been involved with, Rice enjoyed the lighter subject matter of Mean Girls, shot in a New Jersey school early last year. Based on the 2018 Broadway musical, which is due to open in London’s West End in June, the screenplay was written by Fey (who also co-wrote the original), with music by Fey’s husband, Jeff Richmond, and lyrics by Nell Benjamin, who also wrote the music and lyrics for the stage production. While the film has been updated, with contemporary references to things like social media, it remains largely the story of new girl Cady’s attempts to fit into the high-school jungle by pretending to befriend the popular ‘Plastics’ before attempting to bring them down and falling for the wrong guy in the meantime.

“Tiny Fey is such a clever comedian and comedians are constantly updating jokes, reworking them to be relevant to young people, so it didn’t feel strange to read jokes that had been adapted to include Instagram or Spotify,” says Rice. “The high-school cliques and emotions [of the original] are all the same; the pressure of social media is the thing that’s changed the most.”

Rice doesn’t feel overwhelmed following in Lohan’s footsteps, pointing out it’s an actor’s job to bring their own characterisation to a role. But she does, she says, feel a huge responsibility to keep the character of Cady relatable, funny and sympathetic, as Lohan did. “I think the pressure of wanting to satisfy the audience that already loves Mean Girls is the new thing, but the pressure of wanting to play the character honestly and truthfully stays the same with any role I take on.”

Considering the actors’ strike brought the industry to a halt for much of 2023, Rice considers herself extremely fortunate to have been so busy for the duration. As well as My Sister Jill, she and her mum launched their novel, a modern take on one of Rice’s favourite novels, Pride and Prejudice, and she’s continuing to host her podcast The Community Library. Launched not long after Rice graduated from high school in a bid to rekindle her love of reading (quashed by the demands of the Victorian Certificate of Education), and inspired by the podcast Witch, Please, which analysed the Harry Potter books through an academic lens, The Community Library is about stories and how we tell them.

“It connects me with my community, hopefully makes analysis a lot less intimidating, showing pop culture — which you might think frivolous or shallow — is worth talking about and taking a deep dive into, because it’s everywhere,” she says.

A voracious reader, Rice had devoured 56 books during 2023 when we spoke in early December, and was juggling another four, including The Sympathizer by Vietnamese-American professor Viet Thanh Nguyen; Mullumbimby by Melissa Lucashenko (whose previous novel she loved); Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton, for book club; and The Zebra-Striped Hearse by ’50s and ’60s American- Canadian crime novelist Ross Macdonald, one of her father’s favourite authors and someone she reads whenever she’s in Los Angeles, for his local references. “I track my reading,” she says, “It’s one of my favourite things to do, and at the end I get statistics on the pages and genres.”

For the first time in a long time, Rice has nothing booked yet for the year ahead, something the self-confessed planner is newly comfortable with. “This year is a blank slate because the strike halted so many things and I didn’t have anything lined up pre-strike. I feel very peaceful about it,” she laughs. Three weeks in Melbourne over Christmas with her family and whippet-cross-kelpie was a gift – “Christmas in Australia is my favourite” — and she’s sanguine about whatever the future may hold.

“For a couple of years now, I have finished a job knowing exactly how much time off I have before I start the next, so what’s really nice is I don’t have that now and have the confidence and trust that the next project will come, and it will be incredible. And until then I will just enjoy summer in Australia.”

Source: harpersbazaar.com.au

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