Here’s something for those who still carry a lot of Notebook gossip nostalgia for Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. Is there a chance that they could both show up to the Oscars in March? A small one, but it’s still a chance. 

 

And on that note, let me throw it back to 17 years ago – it was February 2006 and Rachel hosted the Science and Technical Oscars; Ryan was there to support her:

Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams at the The 78th Annual Academy Awards - Science and Technical Awards Ceremony in 2006
 

Fast forward to present day, Ryan is one of the frontrunners for a Best Supporting Actor nomination for playing Ken and Rachel started award season with an outside shot at a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her work in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret – which, if you haven’t seen, you’re missing out. Both were nominated in the supporting category at the Gotham Awards but after that, momentum for Rachel kinda dropped off, as she was not nominated for either a Critics’ Choice Award or a Golden Globe. 

 

She got a big boost last week though the  LA Film Critics Association named hers the best supporting performance of the year alongside Da’Vine Joy Randolph and now she’s back in the game. Which is why she’s just given an interview to Variety to talk about how she prepared for her role as Barbara, Margaret’s mom. This is light campaigning, by comparative standards. We haven’t seen Rachel out there at every party, every screening, covering every magazine. 

During her Variety interview – which was covered by Variety’s awards reporter, Clayton Davis, so make no mistake, this absolutely was in service of Oscar season – Rachel was also asked about that Mean Girls reunion and why she wasn’t in the Walmart commercial. As I wrote at the time, her absence became the story of an ad that she wasn’t even in, and that’s the power of saying no. But… why did she say no? 

 

Her answer is diplomatic. She says she was actually tinkering around ideas with Tina Fey for the upcoming Mean Girls reboot that’s coming out next month but ultimately they couldn’t settle on a good idea for Regina. And as for the commercial? 

“I don’t know; I guess I wasn’t that excited about doing a commercial if I’m being totally honest. A movie sounded awesome, but I’ve never done commercials, and it just didn’t feel like my bag. Also…I didn’t know that everyone was doing it. I would, of course, always love to be part of a ‘Mean Girls’ reunion and hang with my plastics, but yeah, I found that out later.”

She wasn’t excited doing a commercial…so the money wasn’t enough for her. And, you know, the money would be enough for a lot of people, me included to be honest. But Rachel just wasn’t about that – and she’s barely about the awards, since as just established, her campaign output has been pretty minimal when you consider what almost everyone else is doing. And somehow she’s remained in the conversation. There really is no clear frontrunner in the Best Supporting Actress category though, so it’ll be interesting to see whether or not it makes a difference when the SAG and then the Oscar nominations are announced in a few weeks. 

Attached: Rachel at the Gotham Awards at the end of November.