The Rachel McAdams Fan Club

We should appreciate what we have.

I don’t know a single person who dislikes Rachel McAdams. And if you do, please unsubscribe. Actually, please don’t unsubscribe. Maybe just unsubscribe from somewhere else, and let me know where you unsubscribe from.

Anyway, Rachel McAdams is one of our best actresses.

My first memory of her is probably from Mean Girls, in which she plays the (actually) iconic Regina George, probably one of the most quoted and most alluded to 21st-century villains. But, equally as important, at least to me, is her role as Claire Cleary in Wedding Crashers, because I don’t think a person on screen has ever been more beautiful and charming. It’s honestly a bit overwhelming.

It’s no surprise that she was my first pick in the “It’s Time To Throw Your Life Away” draft a couple of years ago. I stand by it.

Along with my full-fledged crush, few actors have as varied a filmography as McAdams, who once starred in Mean Girls and The Notebook in the same year and can pivot from Oscar fare like Spotlight or Midnight in Paris to book adaptations like Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. or Sherlock Holmes to out-there comedies like Game Night or Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. She’s also been in a season of True Detective, did her time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and survived being on the same set as Rob Schneider in The Hot Chick.

She’s somehow 47 years old, which really goes to show you that the best of us age perfectly, and is the star of all stars as Linda Liddle in this year’s best movie (so far, of course), Send Help.

Director Sam Raimi and McAdams are pitch-perfect together in this Hitchcockian survival thriller, which is both knowing in its archness and utilizes McAdams’ glee to be every type of actor all in one. At one point, she’s a put-upon workhorse, and the next moment, she’s an action hero, and seconds later, she’s a terrifying Annie Wilkes-esque torturer. She also seems 100% down for the grossness and squeaminess that come with a Raimi film, as does her just-as-stellar co-star, Dylan O’Brien. Send Help is nasty and even a bit cruel. I loved it.

I think what impressed me most was McAdams’ ability to show how much fun she was having on set on screen. The movie plays with her career trajectory as an actress, from being the next Julia Roberts to an underused but always great five-tool player.

There’s quite a bit of vomit, blood and guts in Send Help. But McAdams and O’Brien are game for whatever Raimi throws their way … and it’s a lot.

“Yeah, I feel like we had to kind of go everywhere at one point or another - and it was very experimental, which was fun. I mean, some days it was scary. It was like, Gee, I hope this works! We won’t know for a year - but mostly, it was just really exciting to kind of get into some weird places and push it.” -Rachel McAdams

For all of her hits and countless projects—we haven’t even mentioned her Cameron Crowe collaboration, her multiple projects playing the wife of various time travelers or her psychological airplane thriller opposite Cillian Murphy—McAdams is still a bit underappreciated. She hadn’t been in a movie in three years before Send Help and was apparently offered a handful of roles as the superhero’s girlfriend/wife over the years, which is frankly bonkers.

Give McAdams her TÁR. Let her star in a Yorgos Lanthimos movie. Please hand her a big-budget horror movie. She made her Broadway debut back in 2024 and was immediately nominated for a Tony. It’s time for a McAdamssaince. Well, maybe, we’ve been in one ever since she started acting.