There is one major obstacle in Viola’s plan to take her brother’s place at Illyria, and her name is Monique. Monique is Sebastian’s girlfriend, who initially has no idea that Sebastian is in London with his band, let alone that his twin sister has borrowed his identity. There is also no love lost between Viola and Monique, who is played by Alex Breckenridge. “Nobody really likes Monique,” Breckenridge comments. “She thinks the world revolves around her and everybody should kiss her feet, especially Sebastian. I think she just goes out with him because he’s cute and in a band…and she can boss him around. It was a fun character to play, because she is literally the complete polar opposite of who I am really.”
Rounding out the younger cast of “She’s the Man” are James Snyder as the scheming Malcolm, who also has eyes for Olivia; Amanda Crew and Jessica Lucas, who play Viola’s friends Kia and Yvonne; Clifton Murray and Brandon Jay McLaren, who appear as Duke’s teammates and friends Andrew and Toby; and Emily Perkins, who will be almost unrecognizable to fans of her “Ginger Snaps” movies in the role of the somewhat gawky Eunice, who becomes smitten with who she thinks is Sebastian.
The filmmakers also had fun casting the, relatively speaking, “older generation,” including comedy veterans Julie Hagerty as Viola and Sebastian’s mom, Daphne, whose dreams of her daughter as a debutante in pink satin ruffles have Viola seeing red; and David Cross as Illyria’s overly dedicated Principal Gold, who constantly makes the wrong assumptions about his newest student.
Leslie says, “We are all huge fans of ‘Arrested Development’ and ‘Mr Show,’ so we were thrilled that David wanted to play Principal Gold. Not only does he make what’s already on the page his own, but his riffs and ad-libs raised the character to a whole other level.”
Fickman adds, “David is completely respectful of the written word, so he would always do the first take as needed, and then he’d give me something a little different with each new take. I loved that. We were also great fans of Julie Hagerty. ‘Lost in America’ and ‘Airplane!’ are two of my all-time favorite comedies. To have her on the set elevated everyone’s game, and the kids adored working with both of them.”
On the rival soccer fields, Robert Torti, who had last worked with Andy Fickman in “Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical,” was cast as Cornwall’s chauvinistic Coach Pistonek, and, in something of a casting coup, onetime soccer great Vinnie Jones was set to play Illyria’s tough Coach Dinklage.
“Bringing in Vinnie Jones, who was one of the all-time great footballers, really grounded the soccer scenes for us,” Fickman offers. “It was great to have him on set because he’d be the first to kind of nudge us and say, ‘We’d never do that.’ Then we’d make the change, mostly because Vinnie is big and imposing and could hurt me if I didn’t,” he jokes.
Fickman says that from the veterans to the newcomers and from the teenagers to the baby boomers, “I loved the ensemble feel of our cast. I loved the fact that, on any given day, cast members would show up on set, even when they were not filming. These people had plenty of opportunities to go play when they were not on call, but every day I’d turn around and see them there. Now, admittedly, it was usually around lunch…”
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