Atlanta, Ga.— High school journalist Quinn Shinn will do almost anything to get in with the popular girls in the film “Mean Girls 2.” But the actress who plays Quinn, Campbell University alumna Bethany Anne Lind (’04), actuallyknows little about the vicious struggle to get to the top in high school. She was home schooled for 12 years.
Still, Lind’s performance in a small role in last season’s “Drop Dead Diva” television series was enough to convince director Melanie Mayron (“30 Something”) that she would be right for the part of Quinn in the television adaptation of the original 2008 film “Mean Girls.” “Mean Girls 2” is about a clique of high school girls who are so manipulative, they make Lady Macbeth look like an amateur. Mayron gave Lind her e-mail address and told her to keep in touch.
“I e-mailed her the next week to thank her, thinking well, who knows,” said Lind. “But I got called in!”
After three auditions, Lind got the part of Quinn in “Mean Girls 2,” shot in Atlanta, Ga.. Airing on ABC Family; the film will go into DVD distribution at the conclusion of its run. Meanwhile, Lind and husband Eric Mendenhall, also ’04, continue to be working actors in Atlanta. Currently,Lind is in rehearsal at the Alliance Theatre for the play, “Carapace,” in which she plays the daughter of an alcoholic father who suffers from a severe stutter. Directed by Tony Award winning actress Judith Ivy (“Designing Women”), “Carapace” won the Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition, identifying the best new American playwrights.
“I don’t think I would have ever become an actor if it had not been for Campbell University,” said Lind, who majored in Theatre Arts. “I’m the kind of person who is a little shy, and if I’d gone to some big school, I might not have gotten the attention that helped me to gain confidence in performing.”
At Campbell Lind was able to get on stage right away. She played Mags in “Painting Churches,” Marianne in Moliere’s “The Miser,” Denise in “Smoke on the Mountain,” and multiple roles in the “The Dining Room,” a comedy of manners set in a single dining room where 18 scenes from different households overlap and intertwine.
Lind, who just won an award for best featured actress in a play in Atlanta, said the city is a great haven for actors.
“I still wasn’t sure I could be an actress even after I graduated from Campbell,” Lind said. “But I started going to auditions and getting roles. Having that experience to draw on instilled something in me.”
In the meantime, Lind married Mendenhall, who will be appearing in the play “Cha Cha of a Camel Spider” in West Palm Beach, Fla. this summer, and they moved to Atlanta.
“Atlanta is a big theatre market and it’s close to home,” Lind said. “I was afraid we would just get lost in New York or L.A.”
Lind got an agent and the couple began to get work in commercials and industrial films, enough for Lind to quit her day job and act full time.
“I’m not sorry I chose acting,” she said. “Right now I feel very blessed that I’m able to do it. It’s a lot of hard work. You have to learn how to market yourself as a product and deal with rejection, but I’m learning. Now I know that if I don’t get a role, they aren’t rejecting me but the product.”
A native of High Point, N.C., Lind is the daughter of John and Lila Lind. She has three brothers and one sister, also a Campbell graduate.
Photo Copy: Campbell alumna Bethany Anne Lind