Paramount Pictures
Amanda Seyfried still loves seeing her face on “Mean Girls” T-shirts — but she’s also wondering why she never saw any cut of the merchandise profits.
Seyfried, who played the ditzy “Plastics” clique member Karen Smith in the 2004 teen comedy, recently sat down with her “Jennifer’s Body” costar Adam Brody for Variety’s “Actors on Actors” video series. When asked about her iconic role, she said “Mean Girls” is still a big part of her life more than two decades after its release.
“I’m a little resentful because Paramount still owes me some money [for] the likeness,” Seyfried told Brody. “Every store sells ‘Mean Girls’ T-shirts with our faces, photographs. And I’m like, don’t I [get something from that]?”
“Is it ’cause I was 17 and dumb?” Seyfried added, referring to her age when she was signed on for the role.
It’s not uncommon for actors to receive royalties if their name or likeness is used in merchandising, although deals vary and tend to be negotiated by lawyers and agents ahead of filming. It’s also not unheard of for studios to be stingy with payments.
For example, James Best, who played Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in the ’80s film “The Dukes of Hazzard,” reportedly signed a contract with Warner Bros. Entertainment that guaranteed him “5% of merchandising revenue from products that featured his identity,” per The Hollywood Reporter. However, in 2011, he sued the studio for withholding millions in compensation. (The parties reached an undisclosed settlement two years later.)
The question of actors controlling their own images became a central issue during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike in Hollywood, when the union fought to require “informed consent” for an actor’s likeness to be replicated with AI.
Representatives for Seyfried and Paramount did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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