As If! 37 Facts You Never Knew About Clueless

This month Clueless has turned 20. To mark this important anniversary, an encyclopedia of all things Clueless - *As If!: The Oral History of Clueless as Told by Amy Heckerling, the Cast, and the Crew - *has been released. It's 300 pages of things you never knew about the cult film.

The official anniversary is July 19, so ahead of Clueless' big birthday here are some of our **favourite little-known Clueless facts:

1. Reese Witherspoon and Sarah Michelle Gellar were auditioned for the part of Cher. Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow were also considered.

2. Lauryn Hill was considered for the part of Dionne.

3. Director Amy Heckerling wanted "the girl from the Aerosmith videos" to play Cher - Alicia Silverstone. Heckerling explains: “I was watching an Aerosmith video of Cryin. That was the first video she was in. And I just fell in love with her. Then my friend Carrie Frazier, who’s a casting director [and] who was [casting it] when we were doing it at Fox, said, ‘You have to see this girl in The Crush.’ And I was like, ‘No, I want the Aerosmith girl.’ Well, it was the same girl.”

5. It was originally called No Worries, and was pitched as a TV series to Fox.

6. Cher has 63 costume changes in the film.

7. Alicia Silverstone kept all of her costumes, but she doesn't have a Clueless wardrobe. Alicia reveals in the book: “I didn’t do a very good job at saving any of them. I was stupid about that whole thing. I think I gave them all away.”

8. The costume budget was $200,000. In As If costume designer Mona May says: “I think [the budget] was like $200,000 which was nothing. To have the main character have 63 changes, and you’d have all the big female characters have that many changes in the film, plus all the supporting cast and the background that I had to dress head to toe: That was really not a lot of money.”

9. Cher's plaid yellow Jean Paul Gaultier suit was difficult to find. Mona May writes: “For that scene, we probably tried 10 or 15 different outfits. They were all plaid. Different colors: little dresses, little jumpers, or just different things. Once we put the yellow on—I don’t remember if it was number five or number 10 or whatever—but it was like, ‘Wow. Here it is.’”

10. Cher's over-the-knee socks were inspired by Cabaret. Heckerling says: “When Liza Minnelli is singing ‘Mein Herr’ [in Cabaret] with the short black shorts with the over-the-knee stockings, I go, ‘Well, that’s the best outfit a girl could wear, ever.’”

11. Paul Rudd wore many of his own clothes in the scenes, such as the Amnesty International T-shirt.

12. Cher's computerised wardrobe was inspired by the Victoria's Secret and was filmed in a pool house off the main house where* Clueless* was filmed. The production designer said: “I recall painting her room in pink and white stripes, which was basically—the inspiration there was the box from Victoria’s Secret."

13. Brittany Murphy was a virgin that couldn't drive when she delivered the line "you're a virgin that can't drive."

14. They released a book called How to speak Cluelessly to go along with the release of the film.

15. Alicia Silverston attended the school that was the inspiration behind Bronson Alcott High, Beverly Hills High.

16 There are 53 kinds of plaid in the film - 12 of the major characters wore plaid or tartan.

17. Calvin Klein reissued Cher's white bodycon dress in 2010.

18. It took 40 days to film the entire film.

19. The cast had to put extra-sticky lip balm on their lips to make 'suck and blow' work.

20. Coolio himself suggested 'Rolling with the Homies' was used in the film.

21. Amy Heckerling makes a cameo as Miss Geist's maid of honour.

22. The actor who played Mr Hall was actually a teacher IRL before he became an actor.

**23. **The couple making out at the party scene got married. Amy Heckerling said to the author of As If: “The ADs and I were going through saying if any of the extras wanted to play a couple in the swimming pool making out, they would get extra money for that because they would be wet. Years later I was walking down Melrose and I hear some people going, ‘Amy! Amy!’ And I turn around, and it was them. They met that night. They’re engaged. She shows me the ring that’s been in his family.”

**24. **Cher's report card has the wrong name, calling her Cher Hamilton not Cher Horowitz. In the original script she was named Cher Hamilton.

**25. **Amber wore the exact same lipstick in every scene. Alan Friedman, the film’s makeup supervisor explains: “She was game for anything. She generally wore the same lipstick for every scene, but she would let me sort of go at it.”

**26. **Paul Rudd, who plays Josh, was almost shot on the night before they filmed the Bosstones party. Paul described how a man pulled out a gun on him in a parking lot: "He goes, 'You don't think this is a real gun?'" Rudd remembers. "He was all tweaked out on something, and he shot his gun next to my head. And I just remember looking out of the corner of my eye, and [my friend] had gone back inside — she saw what was happening — to get those policemen [who they'd seen inside]. She did, but it was too late. Then they went to try and chase him, but they couldn't find him." They took his backpack, Discman and a Clueless script.

**27. **Elisa Donovan, who played Amber, tried to make her Clueless doll look more realistic. She said: "I'm still very outspoken about women's issues and anorexia and eating disorders and I felt like, I don't want to perpetuate this idea. So can't we make it so that they look like our body shapes? And they looked at me like, 'You must be smoking crack.'"

**28. **Paul Rudd read for the part of Murray - assuming he was a white kid pretending to be black.

**29. **Stacey Dash was 27 when she played 16-year-old Dionne and had a 6-year-old kid.

**30. **Tara Reid was in the party scene, as Donald Faison said to Vulture: “It took a long time to shoot that scene. I remember falling asleep, and being woken up by Tara Reid, who was not in the movie but just came by the set to hang out. Which was really odd. I went to high school with Tara Reid so when she woke me up, it was kinda like, “Yo, what are you doing here?”

**31. **Mr Hall was based on a real teacher at Beverly Hills High, called Herb Hall. The real Mr Hall made a cameo in the film as the principal.

**32. **The best fact of all: Amy Heckerling has announced that she is working on a musical of Clueless.

**33. **Donald Faison, who plays Murray, wears a hat for most of the film because he shaved the top of his head at the Val party. Producers asked him to keep the hair on the sides so you couldn't tell he was bald.

**34. **Amy's grandparents were like Josh and Cher. She explains in the book: “The thing is my grandparents were stepbrother and stepsister. I mean, it’s the Jewish ghetto. You don’t leave a woman out on the street, because she has no money and how will she feed the kids? Widowers marry widows and that’s how it is, and [their respective children] are not related.”

35. Paul Rudd bought everyone a necklace with their name written on a grain of rice when they finished shooting.

36. Cher's hair clip was worn by Amanda Bynes in She's The Man. Hairstylist Nina Paskoqitz explains: “I said [to Amanda], ‘You know, I put this clip in Alicia’s hair in Clueless.’ She’s like, ‘Oh my God, that’s my favorite movie.’ She started screaming. I said, ‘Would you like to wear it in the scene?’ And she almost had a heart attack she was so excited and honored.”

**37. **Cher's mispronunciation of "Haitians" wasn't in the script but was a mistake by Alicia Silverstone.