Do you remember where you were when you first watched Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion? If not, we’re betting you at least remember the months afterwards; obsessively buying metallic dresses, bleaching your hair, and telling people you invented Post-Its.
It’s been 20 years since the cult classic hit cinemas back on 25 April 1997. Starring Mira Sorvino, Janeane Garofalo, Alan Cumming and that blonde one off Friends, Lisa Kudrow, the low budget film was an instant, surprising hit taking almost $30million at the US box office alone.
And as the stars continue their campaign for a sequel (Lisa recently suggested, “Romy and Michele Get Married or Michele Goes Through the Change and Romy Is There”) heat’s compiled a list of everything that could never have happened without this film. Have a Romy and Michele day!
1 Justin Theroux’s career
HE WAS THE COWBOY! Yep! We’ll give you a minute while you piece it together. Now-major-A-lister Justin played the stuttering smoker who “never screwed a sheep or my sister” and ended up copping off with Janeane’s character, Heather Mooney. Without this appearance, he probably wouldn’t have got his big break in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive a couple of years later. Side note: did you know he also had a bit part in series two of Ally McBeal?
2 The best excuse ever
Before this film, whenever we were trapped with some boring loser at a party, we had to be content with lame lines like, “I need the loo” or “I’m going to get another drink”. Post RAMHSR, we could say “Would you excuse me? I cut my foot before, and my shoe is filling up with blood." Always a winner.
3 Phoebe Buffay
OK, so Friends had already been going for a few years when Lisa Kudrow filmed RAMHSR, but her character – Michele – dated back to 1988, when Lisa played her on stage as part of a comedy group called the Groundlings. And let’s face it, Phoebe Buffay was basically just Michele with longer dresses and a guitar.
4. Alan Cummings’ American accent
The X Men and Good Wife actor who played geek-turned-helicopter-owning billionaire Sandy Frink, says the film was his big break in America. “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion was the first film I made in the US, indeed the first time I’d ever worked in any capacity in the US. It was also the first time I’d ever played an American character on film. I still can’t understand why they cast me… I can’t tell you how naïve I was.” No Eli lecturing Alicia Florrick? It’s unthinkable.
5. Brilliant Halloween costumes
Quick, you only have seven months (and the last 20 years) to get your Romy and Michele Halloween costume ready! Mira recently said she realised what a cult phenomenon the film was only when she saw “people dress up as us for Halloween!” And even celebs love the look, with Jessica Alba and her bestie Kelly Sawyer spending the night in those iconic pink and blue dresses back in 2015.
6. THAT DANCE
If you don’t start leaping around in bare feet every time you hear Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time, we don’t even know you. Mira said later, “We designed the dance in mind for comedy… I had done a lot of ballet as a kid, so we put some ballet moves in there, but then I would do dismounts, like a gymnast. I started doing the Snoopy dance at one point. It just is throwing stuff in there just to make it this gleeful, crazy thing.” Alan also called the scene “really iconic” and recently reminded everyone it earned them “a MTV movie award [nomination], thank you very much.”
