Get in losers, the Damians are talking.
Full disclosure: TThis. Yeah, it’s a strange and so-flattering thing to be linked to such an indelible character as Mean Girls‘ Damian. He’s an icon, he’s a scene stealer and he’s joyful proof that you’re never too gay to function. He’s also heavily influenced by my brother Jim (especially the stage version originated by the flawless Grey Henson on Broadway): We’re both huge homos who grew up with Tina Fey doing summer theater in Upper Darby, PA in the ’80s, having movie nights at our parents’ house and eating our feelings.
But Jim doesn’t even go here—by “here,” I mean work in the media—so when the folks at Paramount suggested a chat with Daniel Franzese and Jaquel Spivey, the two actors who have played Damian on screen, in support of the digital and streaming release of this year’s movie-musical Mean Girls, it was like, that is so fetch. And meta.
When Damians Attack. Franzese and Spivey with the author at the Mean Girls 2024 premiere in January.
“What is happening is Damian of the 2024 movie musical Mean Girls is chatting with Daniel, who is Damian of Mean Girls chatting with Damian, who is the blueprint for the Damian of the 2004 movie and the musical and the 2024 movie musical,” explains Spivey, the Strange Loop Tony nominee who joined Looking alum Franzese for a look back on what the role means to them, and more importantly, to viewers who may finally have a more inclusive mirror in which to see themselves.
Lindsay Lohan, Lizzy Caplan, Daniel Franzese in Mean Girls 2004 (Paramount/courtesy Everett Collection)
“When I was a kid, I was always trying to find who was fat-coded or queer-coded or Italian-coded all the time in something. It was always just little,” notes Franzese. “I got everything piecemeal. I distinctly remember a character that sticks in my mind from a Fox television show. It was a sitcom where he was chubby and he liked girl and he bought her flowers and it was like he was begging her to go out with him. And I was like, ‘Man, this seems a little sad.’ Why are all our stories sad?”
“And so for me, that was always a weird thing…if I did have any representation, it was depressing. So when [Mean Girls] came around and I read it, not only was it one of the funniest scripts I ever read, I was cracking up out loud on every page, but I was like, wow.”
Jaquel Spivey plays Damian, Angourie Rice plays Cady Heron and Auli’i Cravalho plays Janis in Mean Girls 2024 (Jojo Whilden/Paramount)
Two decades later, Spivey is creating space for an even more inclusive array of fans at the Damian table. “I’m so glad that we can have the conversation [that] representation matters, but I feel like sometimes the reach of that representation only goes so far. Usually, if it’s a queer story, it never really reaches the Black community. So that’s why when we got Moonlight, everybody was like, ‘Oh my God, what is this?!’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, this is great…but they’re all Teen Vogue models.’ It’s great, don’t get me wrong, but my experience in this body is very different than those who aren’t in it.”
“So to really be able to come on the scene and take a character who’s already been that representation for so many of us and then add that one little touch that’s like, ‘Just in case you didn’t have this, you have it now!’ And that feels really good that a legacy that touched me and changed my life, I’m now able to pass that on,” he continues. “Hopefully it’s just the gift that keeps on giving.”
Just none for you, Gretchen Weiners. Bye!
Mean Girls, now streaming on Paramount+ and available on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray™, and DVD on April 30.
[FYI, that’s the 20th anniversary of the O.G. 2004 Mean Girls, which drops on 4k Ultra HB the same day.]