"Mean Girls 2" Spotlight
Nicole Anderson is Not A Mean Girl! She Just Plays One in “Mean Girls 2!”
Nicole Gale Anderson’s past few roles have shown the young actress’ amazing versatility. She is most recognizable to Disney Channel fans as the enthusiastic and lovable Jonas Brothers’ fan “Macy Misa” on the popular series “Jonas.” She also plays mean girl “Kelly Parker” on the highly addictive ABC Family Series, “Make it or Break it.” More recently, she played another mean girl named “Hope Plotnick” in a sequel to the movie “Mean Girls,” aptly titled “Mean Girls 2.”
We recently had the chance to chat with this rising young star who was more than willingly to talk about everything from making a movie with a crop of today’s most talented young actresses to how she battled her own mean girls while in middle school. We bring you more on Nicole below!
“I always loved performing as a little kid,” Nicole begins when asked about how she got her start in show business. “I grew up doing gymnastics, so floor and beam, kind of the performance events were always my favorite. When I got injured when I was like 13… that’s when I was really given the opportunity to take time and actually follow through with acting. That’s when I got started and just completely fell in love with it. I loved creating new characters and kind of getting away with things that I wouldn’t be able to get away with in real life. Playing characters and not having to live with the results,” she laughs.
Her natural ability, willingness to learn and put herself out there helped get the ball rolling for the actress pretty quickly. “I started out doing print modeling and commercials. I think my very first job was a Bratz Doll commercial. Then slowly [I] got into television and started out on a lot of the kids’ networks’ television shows like ‘Unfabulous’ and ‘Zoey 101.’ Then eventually, [I] landed ‘Jonas.’”
Her time on “Jonas” made her realize just how much she loved being an actress. “Just to really appreciate the fact that I get to do what I love to do every single day,” she replies easily when asked about the most important thing she learned by being on such a high profile series. “It was so much fun being able to go on set and go to work essentially just hang out with my friends. I became really close with the Jonas Brothers and Chelsea Staub has been my best friend since I was 13. It was the time of my life. I loved working on that show!”
She also loved heading to Atlanta, Georgia to film a sequel to the super successful film “Mean Girls 2.” Also cast in the film were some of today’s most successful young actresses like Meaghan Martin, Jennifer Stone and Claire Holt. The story follows a new transfer student (Martin), as she tries to take down the school bullies. Nicole plays “Hope,” one of school’s “Plastics,” mean girls who terrorize their fellow students.
“Hope Plotnick is really a funny type of mean girl,” she says about her character in the film. “She isn’t necessarily devious. She’s a hypochondriac. She’s very, very, prissy. She has an A type personality. She’s like the weaker one of the mean girls because she kind of hides behind Mandy but does all of her dirty work.”
Helping Nicole get into character was “Hope’s” wardrobe. “She was definitely a lot of fun to play and get dressed up in all the ruffles, lace, ribbons and all that and kind of get into character and becomes super prissy. Once I got my wardrobe together, it definitely influenced the choices I made as the character. It definitely helped me make her more prissy and girly and uptight and just very, very silly.”
It didn’t take a whole lot more to research to prepare to play this part. “For this role… I was kind of picked on in middle school, so I was just like ‘Oh, I’ll be like the Queen Bee at my middle school and kind of emulate her.’ One of my other favorite characters that I play is ‘Kelly Parker’ on ABC Family’s ‘Make it or Break it.’ She’s a huge, huge mean girl as well. It was also very interesting to play another mean girl but play it differently and make her kind of her own person and her own character.”
Unfortunately, Nicole can remember being teased when she was in school. “I definitely encountered them in middle school,” she says of her own “mean girls.” “I was a huge bookworm. I was in three academic clubs. I was like the teacher’s pet so I was an easy target for bullies. It’s what I really loved to do. I loved learning. I also loved gymnastics which is where I found my two best friends, my teammates. I was like ‘You know, as long as I’m doing what I really love to do and I have people that are close to me, it doesn’t matter what other people think. I’m just going to do my own thing and have that be that.’ I think that’s really important for girl’s to learn these days… because I think a lot of young girls try to copy what other people are doing or kind of change who they are as people just to fit in. You don’t necessarily have to do that because in the end, you aren’t really happy anyway.”
Luckily, her cast-mates weren’t really “mean girls,” they just played them in the movie. “I think we all got along so well because we’re all such goofballs and we all just love being silly. If we were doing a car scene and a song came on the radio we would turn it up and sing along at the top of our lungs and laugh. We didn’t care. We played pranks on each other. On our time off, we’d go out to eat or check out some of the local spots. Little Five Points in Atlanta was kind of our favorite. It was where a lot of the vintage shopping was. We’d go and see movies and things like that. We all got along really, really well. I was definitely very lucky to get such a cool group of cast-mates. We’re all friends to this day. We all keep in touch. Claire Holtz has become one of my best friends.”
Nicole really doesn’t have a preference to shooting on location versus taking roles that shoot in Los Angeles. “I think it’s all exciting. I think filming on location is kind of like a perk of what I do because I get to travel a bit and on my time off I’ll get to check out parts of a city that I’ve never been to and be a tourist while I’m working. It’s always really, really fun to go on location but at the same time, I love L.A. I love being close to home, my parent live in San Diego, being able to go home on my time off, also hang out with my friends. Also, filming on location gives you more of an opportunity to really bond with cast-mates because there’s not really any other people to hang out with.”
When she isn’t working, Nicole is a pretty typical girl. “I love to just hang out with my friends. They’re college students, they’re not in the industry so we have dinner nights and we learn how to cook together. We watch our favorite TV shows. We love watching ‘Glee’ and ‘One Tree Hill’ and ‘Dexter.’ We like going to concerts. I love going to live shows and checking out my favorite artists. I like hiking and going to the beach and staying active and working out… things like that.”
The hard-working actress hopes other aspiring artists find their voice no matter what type of city or town they live in and offers the following advice: “Sign up for a local theater program or even a play at your school. I remember in fifth grade my elementary school was putting on the play Johnny Appleseed. That was the first time where I was really like ‘Oh my gosh! This is really, really something that I want to do. I really want to audition for this play and see how it goes.’ It can stem from that. Even in your own living room you can put on shows for your parents. I use to do it! I use to put on improve shows and magic shows and fashion shows for my parents. As long as it’s something you love to do, you’ll find a way.”
Check out Nicole as “Hope” in “Mean Girls 2,” now available anywhere you find your home entertainment rentals or purchases. Though she already has a huge resume, you get the feeling that this is just the beginning for this talented young star.