Famous actress Jenna Fischer revealed she suffered a broken shoulder at the time of filming “Mean Girls” and wound up having to push through her role while in pain.
“It was the wildest experience,” she told People. “I shot for one day on Mean Girls, and then I didn’t have to shoot for a month, and in that month I went on a ski trip and I fell on a sidewalk and I broke my shoulder.”
Rather than delaying filming, she powered on and found ways to adapt her role to make it work. “So I had to shoot the rest of the movie with a very newly broken shoulder,” she said. The star went on to explain how challenging it was and just how long it took her to recover.
Actress Jenna Fischer attends the Damiani Diamonds & The Hollywood Reporter Power 100 Women in Entertainment on December 3, 2009 in Beverly Hills, California. Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
She said the cast and crew were very compassionate about the fact that she was struggling to work while in pain and that they did everything they could to accommodate her injury. The famous actress admitted she wasn’t really able to move her right arm, which added layers of complexity to the already stressful situation, according to People.
Actress Jenna Fischer poses for a picture at Build Studio on March 23, 2018 in New York City. Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images
Jenna Fischer attends “Geezer” Premiere – 2016 Tribeca Film Festival at Spring Studios on April 23, 2016 in New York City. Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival
“If you notice in the opening shot of the movie, I’m out in the middle of a field, and Cady is singing, and I have a crossbody bag on. And I’m holding my crossbody bag,” she explained. “The reason I’m doing that is because I had to take my sling off. That was serving as a sling for me.”
Fischer described how she had to overcompensate with her good shoulder while filming.
Actress Jenna Fischer attends the premiere of “Solitary Man” at Cinema 2 on May 11, 2010 in New York City. Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images
“So if you notice in the movie I am exclusively gesturing with my left arm,” she told People. “So a big part of my role in Mean Girls was pretending I didn’t have a broken shoulder.”
Jenna Fischer attends the 2017 ABC Upfront on May 16, 2017 in New York City. Photo by Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images
One year has passed since Fischer broke her shoulder, and she has only begun to raise her arm above her head now.
“I’m still in physical therapy for it. I’m still rehabbing it,” she said. (RELATED: Video Appears To Show Reality Star In Excruciating Pain After Alleged Knife And Acid Attack)
“It’s a complicated injury, as anyone who’s injured their shoulder will tell you.”