Amanda Seyfried’s 8-Year-Old Daughter Had the Most Unexpected Reaction to Mean Girls

File this under delightful parenting updates: Amanda Seyfried says her 8-year-old finally watched Mean Girls, and yes, she had feelings about it.

The setup

In a new chat with Entertainment Tonight, Seyfried admitted she doesn't actually control which of her movies her kids see first. Case in point: Mamma Mia beat everything else to the punch because her daughter Nina watched it years ago with grandma. ABBA kicks in, dancing happens, nobody is stopping that train.

How Mean Girls finally happened

• Seyfried has been most excited for Nina to see the one that made mom famous to a certain generation: Mean Girls, where she played Karen Smith.
• The moment arrived on a work trip to Switzerland. Seyfried was there with director Mona Fastvold and Fastvold's 11-year-old daughter, Ada, who couldn't believe Nina hadn't seen Mean Girls yet.
• They put it on. As Nina watched, Seyfried felt like the timing landed perfectly: the movie's sharp and stylish, some of it may float a bit above an 8-year-old's head, but the humor hits. Plus, Nina got to see her mom onscreen while the people around her reacted to it in real time, which helped it click.
• Nina liked it. She's not living in a pink tracksuit over it yet, but the appreciation is there.

"When she's like 10, she's gonna be like, 'This is badass, Mom.' But right now, she's like, 'Yeah, it's really funny.'"

The kid critic's verdict

At 8, Nina's response was more giggles than superfan energy. She's currently more devoted to Seyfried's Sophie from the Mamma Mia movies, which tracks if your first exposure includes wall-to-wall ABBA. But Seyfried called the Mean Girls watch a very cool moment, mostly because it turned into a shared experience instead of a staged introduction to a capital-F Famous Role.

For the personal-life scoreboard: Seyfried shares Nina and a younger son with her husband, actor Thomas Sadoski.