Panka was a schoolchild when Mean Girls was first released in 2004, but the cult teen movie has become an enduring pop culture phenomenon.<\/p>\n
It has inspired millions of quotes, memes and a successful musical adaptation which has run on Broadway and the West End.<\/p>\n
Written by Saturday Night Live star Tina Fey, it follows home-schooled Cady Heron, who grew up in Africa, as she navigates the jungle of her new US high school. <\/p>\n
But the standout character is “queen bee” Regina, head of the Plastics clique and the meanest of the mean girls. <\/p>\n
Panka describes her as an “amazing” character to play – and one she didn’t expect to get when she entered the competitive audition process.<\/p>\n
“At every turn, I was like, this is going way too well,” she recalls.<\/p>\n
It will not be lost on audiences that Panka and Rachel McAdams, who portrayed Regina in the original movie, are from different ethnic backgrounds, and many fans will have a strong image of the character in their minds.<\/p>\n
“I feel like we all remember that 2004 movie so well, all the quotes, so I just know how iconic Regina is,” says Panka.<\/p>\n
“Obviously I give my own spin on things, I am always really inspired by Regina and Rachel McAdams’ version of Regina, I just think she is extremely iconic and hilarious.”<\/p>\n
But the significance of Panka’s casting, and what it represents to other aspiring actors, is not lost on her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Panka was a schoolchild when Mean Girls was first released in 2004, but the cult teen movie has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-481695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}