Lizzy Caplan doesn't mind that she's known for playing sharp, sardonic brunettes.

It wasn't always that way. Two decades ago, when she donned heavy eyeliner and extra-dark hair to play the vengeful high school outcast Janis Ian in the 2004 film "Mean Girls," she worried the instantly iconic role would lead to her being typecast as the "goth best friend."

"I completely changed my look so that I wouldn't get pigeonholed," Caplan, now 42, told Business Insider. Then she didn't work for a year.

"My phone was not ringing off the hook," she recalled.

After trying to run in the opposite direction, Caplan learned to lean into her strengths, gravitating towards layered, sometimes misunderstood characters — minus the goth eyeliner.

That includes real-life human sexuality pioneer Virginia Johnson in "Masters of Sex," an opinionated magazine writer trapped in suburban hell in "Fleishman Is in Trouble," a murderer in season two of "Castle Rock," and a modern version of Glenn Close's mentally unstable character from "Fatal Attraction" in the 2023 reimagined series adaptation.

"Eventually, I just kind of started going back to the acerbic, dark-haired girls and really, that's my preferred place to be," Caplan tells Business Insider. "So it all ended up working out."

The two-time Emmy nominee plays another strong-willed character in Netflix's new political thriller "Zero Day," centered on a deadly cyberattack that ignites chaos in the US.

In the limited series, she stars as Alexandra Mullen, a congresswoman who lives in the shadow of her father, George Mullen (Robert De Niro), the former president of the United States. Alexandra represents the new blood in politics who does things differently than her predecessors.

Aside from the honor of going head-to-head with De Niro, Caplan relished the opportunity to embody someone who exists in a morally gray area.

"I always gravitate toward very complicated characters, characters who, maybe, if you objectively looked at some of the decisions they made, it would be easy to categorize them as the bad guy, as the villain, as evil," Caplan said. "But I think that the most exciting challenge of tackling one of those characters is that nobody actually sees themselves as the bad guy when they're making these decisions. They see themselves as the hero."

For the latest interview in Business Insider's Role Play series, Caplan reflects on the ubiquity of "Mean Girls" in pop culture, why she's partially relieved the scrapped Channing Tatum-led "Gambit" movie never came to fruition, and the role she's still shocked that she landed.

On trying on tons of goth wigs to convince 'Mean Girls' bosses she was right for Janis

Business Insider: "Mean Girls" is obviously one of your most iconic roles, but I remember reading that you had to fight for that part because they had a look in mind. How did it feel to face that pushback, and what was the audition process like to prove yourself for that role?

Lizzy Caplan: Yeah, it was a fight. I think every single girl who auditioned went in for the Lindsay Lohan character, and then they sort of started bringing us back for the different characters.

I loved the character of Janis from the beginning. I always wanted to be Janis. They thought they had somebody else, or other types of people in mind for that role. I do remember that somebody from the hair department flew down from Canada, and we went to a cheap wig store, and I tried on all these black goth wigs, and we took all these pictures to try to convince them.

I don't know what eventually pushed it in my direction, but I do remember where I was when I got the phone call, and how excited I was, and how fun it was to make that movie. It's a very lovely memory for me.

How did being part of a film that went on to be so successful affect your career trajectory? Did you get an influx of offers for roles after that movie came out, and similarly, did you feel pigeonholed into Janis-type roles?

Yes to the second question. I definitely was very nervous about being pigeonholed. And you have to remember that 20 years ago when that movie came out, if you were the goth best friend, that was a lane that you could very easily get trapped in. The goth girl was not the main protagonist of any story back then. Winona Ryder did it, and then it stopped happening for, like, 20 years, and now it's like those sort of darker, more alt, left-of-center female characters are once again getting to be the main characters, which is great. That was not the landscape when "Mean Girls" came out.

The movie, I feel like it was a success at the time. Since then, it's become this cultural touchstone for people. It's really taken on a whole other life, I think, post-internet. But no, I did not get an influx of offers at all. I didn't work for a year after "Mean Girls."

Talking about "Party Down," you've said that playing Casey was one of your favorite roles ever. How did you feel when the show was originally canceled, and how did you deal with that disappointment?

It was horrible. It was so sad. We kind of saw the writing on the wall — it was a complete failure in the ratings. Nobody watched it. We talk, still, us "Party Down" people, we kind of marvel at the fact that it had a zero share in the Nielsen ratings.

But it was so unbelievably fun to make, and we all loved each other so much, and got so so so close. It was made on this shoestring budget, and it felt like theater school. It was the most fun thing to make, as well as being something that we all really, really believed in.

Still, I'll watch an episode every now and then, and I will just die laughing. The caliber of comedy from my costars in that show still blows my mind. But again, it had bad ratings. Adam Scott had taken the job on "Parks and Recreation," which also felt like, 'Oh, this apparently doesn't bode so well,' and it was really depressing.

We were really sad. But that was also back in the day when your show getting canceled was like death. I think the longer I've been in this business, things feel a little bit more right-sized.

On the role she still can't believe she landed and the scrapped 'Gambit' movie with Channing Tatum

A lot of people know you from "Masters of Sex," which lasted four seasons on Showtime and was very popular at the time. When you were on that show, did you feel like you had stability in your career? Did it affect how you saw your career going at the time?

For sure, it completely changed how I saw my career more than anything else I did. I always knew I wanted to try more dramatic roles. I was pretty resigned to the fact that that probably wasn't going to be my path. If you had established yourself in comedy, chances were you were going to stay in comedy. And I think just because the creator of that show had no idea about my comedy work, that's the only reason why I probably was even seen for it.

I loved it. It was before streaming, so personally, the pinnacle of success for me was to be on an HBO show or a Showtime show, a respected drama. I didn't think I would ever get that role. The fact that I did still kind of blows my mind, and it completely changed my career. It offered me so much stability. I don't think I had ever done a show that had gotten [more than] two seasons before then. I loved it. I bought a house. I got to stay in LA, where I was living at the time.

I'm actually now, probably for the first time since that show, really ready to do an ongoing series. I would love a little of that stability again. But, yeah, I truly, truly loved making that show.

A while back, I remember that you were rumored to be cast in this "Gambit" movie with Channing Tatum, but it ended up getting scrapped. What do you remember about the character you were supposed to play and the concept of the movie?

It was a really cool idea. It's kind of odd that it got scrapped [laughs]. Those movies don't seem to ever get scrapped, but it did.

We got down the road, we were gonna shoot it. I think there was a start date. I had had meetings with Channing, we had a director, then we didn't. But I had multiple meetings with Channing and the other producers. And the idea was great. They wanted to do a '30s kind of screwball romantic comedy set in that world, which would have been really fun.

Are you interested in the superhero genre at this stage, or are you looking toward getting a show that you can do for many seasons?

I think probably more the show. Let's just say that was, like, so many years ago. The "Gambit" thing, that's when those movies were, I guess, probably the best they were. That's when they were dominating in every possible way. And I had a lot of stress about doing that kind of movie even then. So now I'm pretty OK not doing one of those movies. I can hear my manager screaming in the other room [laughs.].

"Now You See Me 2" is one of my favorite projects of yours. Are you coming back for the third movie that's out in November? I've seen mixed things and some unclearness.

I'm as curious as you are about that.

On the business decision that 'tortured' her and her favorite under-appreciated roles

Speaking more broadly about your career, what's the best business decision that you made for yourself?

God, that is a good question. I think one of the hardest decisions I had to make — I do think it was the right decision, but it was brutal and remains a source of pain for me — I had to choose between doing the third season of "Party Down" and "Fleishman Is in Trouble."

I did "Fleishman Is in Trouble" and I was tortured over that decision. I don't think there was a wrong answer, and I don't think there was a right answer.

Is there a particular role of yours that you feel is underrated or you wish got more love from fans or more attention?

I'll say two things. One, I feel like people really liked this animated show I did for Netflix called "Inside Job," and I really loved that project, too. I feel like it didn't really register with a lot of people, but the people that did see it seemed to really like it.

And then I'm really proud of the show "Castle Rock," and I think that that one kind of flew a little bit under the radar, but I loved making that, and it was a really huge challenge. I'm very proud of that one.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

"Zero Day" is now streaming on Netflix.

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