Rachel McAdams maintains a very private profile outside of her work life but yesterday, she Zoomed in and donated $10,000 in support of her hometown-area fundraiser for frontline healthcare workers, threw in some pop culture nostalgia for us all, and some social distancing family time details too.
During ultra-rare interview, Rachel talks about the sentimental legacy of her major 2004 hits, Mean Girls and The Notebook. Rachel said that of all of the characters she’s played, that “it would be fun to play Regina George later in life and see where life took her!” OK, come on. Who would be a more venomous mommy blogger, or calculating “influencer”, than the pseudo-reformed villain of Mean Girls, Regina George?!
Rachel continues:
“Let’s hope Mean Girls has helped girls be nicer to each other (laughs), and not the other way around. It’s really bizarre, I feel so lucky to be a part of something that’s stuck around even a little bit. That’s never something I imagined happening in life, so… Yeah, it’s strange and surreal still. I remember after I did The Notebook and one of the people at the studios called me, and said, ‘Congratulations, it’s a really beautiful film… I’m not going to make any money on it, I’m probably going to lose money on it, but I just wanted you to know that it’s a really nice movie, and I just wanted you to feel good even if it doesn’t go anywhere. … and that’s the thing, you just never know how things will take off!”
You just never know how many people will still connect with Allie and Noah, either. And ship the actors in real life. Still. “It’s not over….” etc. But this reveal and possible interest in a Mean Girls spinoff or sequel came attached to an especially timely, important cause that Rachel has a strong family connection to. Her nearly 20-minute video chat was part of yesterday’s “Heroes of Health: Covid-19 Stream-a-thon,” which raised over $50,000 for the London Health Sciences Foundation in London, Ontario, minutes away from where Rachel grew up in St. Thomas. At the beginning of the interview, Rachel shared that her mom Sandra had worked at University Hospital in London for 38 years, and that it was her mom who was “really excited and really touched personally to know… that [this fundraiser] was all put together.”
Rachel was the day’s top donor, and said that she was thrilled with extra PPE supplies, noting that, “Anything that can make [healthcare workers] safer so they can get back to their families too would make it all worth it.”
And then there are the personal family details. While Rachel did not disclose anything about her love life or marital status with her screenwriter partner Jamie Linden, she did say that she has a “welcome distraction”: her two year old son. She’s thankful he’s not a teenager, and that she doesn’t have to homeschool him…. yet. Apparently, he spends most of his time snacking, which is a mood.
“So, that’s pretty much what I do… all the time. It’s true, he’s so entertaining! I thought about that, ‘Would I rather be alone in quarantine? Or with my family?’ You know, there are days sure, but I mean I would be so bored without him around to make it so fun. We’ve been, like I said, we live out in the country and there’s a little farm down the road, so we can go and look at the animals. [We’re] doing some planting, some okra, well, I mean, I do the planting and he snacks most of the day…”
It’s hard not to smile while watching how happy Rachel is to talk about her son, while rocking a cozy “Canadian Made” hoodie. And if you’re wondering when you’ll see her next, it will be in the Netflix musical comedy Eurovision. Prem broke down what we can expect from the movie last August.Originally set to be released in May in tandem with the televised competition series, Rachel said on the livestream that the release is now pushed “to the end of June.” She credits this delay in part to how challenging it is to coordinate the international vocal dubbing for her and Will Ferrell’s characters’ reality TV show performances and joke-singing in these times. But doesn’t that sound like the perfect lockdown watch, whenever it arrives?
Rachel’s candid and somewhat unexpected appearance four hours and nine minutes into a YouTube stream still feels like a social distancing mirage, but it is one I’m definitely thankful for. And yes, this is as much of a reminder to hit play on Game Night. “Oh no, he died!” still hits.
