Rachel McAdams allegedly heckled by fan during opening night of Broadway debut

Rachel McAdams was reportedly heckled during the opening night of her Broadway debut in Amy Herzog’s play Mary Jane.

Audience members attending the opening night performance at the Samuel J Friedman Theatre in New York on Tuesday (23 April) reported hearing one person shouting at the Oscar-nominated star in the middle of her performance.

The impassioned fan allegedly shouted “We love you Rachel McAdams” across the venue. Although the actor is said to have managed to remain composed, other attendees were aghast at the loud interruption during an emotional scene.

In the play, McAdams’ character is a single mother of a toddler with cerebral palsy. Mary Jane follows the eclectic group of women who support her through the struggles of motherhood, including Facebook friends and a Buddhist nun.

The actor, whose credits include Mean Girls (2004), The Notebook (2004) and Spotlight (2015), stars in the production alongside April Matthis (The Piano Lesson), Lily Santiago (La Brea) and Brenda Wehle (American Beauty).

One annoyed audience member wrote on X/Twitter. “I felt sick,” “Rachel was a champion…but we have a theatre going epidemic. If you suck, stay home!”while another said: “I felt sick.” A third described the moment as “so shocking”.

McAdams has detailed her struggles with stage fright following the play’s opening night. Speaking to PEOPLE, the actor admitted she will experience nerves during every performance of the play.

“I feel so honoured to be here,” she said. “Broadway was something I’d always wanted to do, but felt really intimidated by. So, to be standing on that stage feels like the completion of a longtime dream. I’m less nervous now, but they’re still there; I still get nervous every night.”

It comes after McAdams was surprisingly absent from the 2024 Mean Girls movie, starring Reneé Rapp. The film, based on the Broadway version of the 2004 film, featured multiple appearances from the original cast, including Lindsay Lohan, Tina Fey and Tim Meadows.

During an interview with Variety, McAdams explained why she didn’t cameo, saying: “Tina [Fey] and I sort of dabbled with a few ideas, but it was tough to make it all work in the end. I was really down for whatever she wanted to do.”

She also was not part of the reunion with her fellow castmates Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Seyfried, and Lacey Chabert who appeared in a Black Friday commercial for Walmart because she “wasn’t that excited” about “doing a commercial”.

“Also, I didn’t know that everyone was doing it,” she said. “I would, of course, always love to be part of a Mean Girls reunion and hang with my Plastics, but yeah, I found that out later.”