Throwing it back! Amanda Bynes starred in the 2003 movie What a Girl Wants, and it’s still a favorite among fans.
Aside from the former Nickelodeon actress — who played the role of Daphne Reynolds — the flick starred Colin Firth as Henry Dashwood, Kelly Preston as Libby Reynolds, Oliver James Hutson as Ian Wallace and Christina Cole as Clarissa Payne, among others. Throughout the movie, viewers watch as Daphne takes a trip to England after graduating high school in order to find her father, Henry, who has hoped to become the country’s Prime Minister.
Henry is now engaged to another woman (who has a horrible daughter named Clarissa) years after Libby left England and has no idea he’s about to meet his teenage daughter. Along the way, she falls in love with the budding musician Ian.
Eventually, Henry and Daphne meet when she arrives at his home, and she quickly learns the way of England’s elite. After they spend father-daughter time together, Henry’s team of political advisers attempt to get rid of Daphne who eventually returns to the United States with her mother. The film ends with Daphne, Libby, Ian and Henry all reuniting in America.
Years after the movie’s premiere, Christina spoke with Vulture in October 2020 about nabbing her breakout role.
“I actually graduated early in order to get the job,” the actress recalled. “At my drama school in Oxford, which was very traditional, you had to have booked a certain number of days on a ‘professional’ acting job in order to graduate early. So, I was absolutely thrilled when I booked the job. It was a brilliant role in a brilliant film, and it allowed me to get out of there.”
While her costar Amanda was a huge name in the United States during the early 2000s, Christina admitted she didn’t know about The Amanda Show alum until auditioning for the movie.
“I was a bit older than her and wasn’t watching those kinds of shows. I didn’t have children at the time, either, so that must’ve just missed me,” the Suits star shared. “I wasn’t aware of her superpower in England just yet. She probably did have a huge presence, to be fair.”
That being said, Christina does remember Amanda as an “absolutely lovely” person with whom to work.
“I can’t believe it’s been so long,” she told Vulture. “She was very young at the time and definitely was a bit homesick. She was looking for creature comfort and things that England didn’t have at the time. But she acclimated around us quite quickly.”
Scroll through our gallery to see what the cast of What a Girl Wants is up to now.
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