Alicia Silverstone botching the role of Cher Horowitz? As if.
And, yet, the actress was filled with trepidation the first time she considered revisiting her iconic Clueless role. Launching her TikTok page in 2021 with a reenacted scene from the beloved 1995 flick, "I felt very shy about it," the 44-year-old admitted to E! News in an exclusive interview. "I know that's what everybody wants and it makes me really uncomfortable because it's scary! Like, what if I don't do it well? I was a little girl when I was doing that. And now I'm a woman. So it feels silly."
Yes, that sounds way harsh. But those were the thoughts running through her head when she teamed up with Rakuten to film a 2023 Super Bowl commercial that saw her return to debate class, arguing the merits of using the shopping platform to score cash back on purchases from your go-to brands.
Directed to play with a piece of gum, a nod to the original "We can certainly party with the Haitians" scene, Silverstone admittedly "had this vision of myself, like, the ugliest old lady with gum all over her face. In my head, there was no way it would be good."
Standing in front of Rakuten execs, costar Elisa Donovan (a.k.a. frenemy Amber) and a roomful of extras (including Christian Siriano, who reimagined Cher's looks for the spot), "I was going, 'This is terrible. It's not working at all,' because that's what was happening in my mind," Silverstone detailed. "But, then, when I saw it, I went, 'Oh. It's adorable.'"
She was a total Betty, if you will.
As a bonus for fans, the whole experience was so great that it made her want to step back into Cher's iconic Mary Janes more than just sporadically. "Wouldn't that be so fun?" she said when asked about the possibility of a Clueless sequel. "After doing this, I really felt like, 'Oh no, I don't get to keep going? Like it's just done? These two days?' So either Rakuten and I are going to have to make many more commercials or something is going to have to happen."
If nothing else, it would give her the chance to snag more of Cher's styles. Because as much as we'd like to imagine every last piece of the fashion icon's clothing hanging in her meticulously organized, state-of-the-art revolving closet, Silverstone admits she's actually, um, totally clueless about where any of it is.
When tapped to play Cher back in the 1990s, Silverstone would best describe herself as "ensemble-y challenged." She had her go-to audition uniform of jeans and a green t-shirt and then "my boyfriend at the time's grungy plaid shirt that I wear in the Aerosmith videos."
So when filming wrapped, the then-18-year-old "took a lot of the clothes from the movie thinking that I would wear them," she explained. "But when I left, I realized, 'Oh, well this isn't me, that was Cher.' So I couldn't figure out how to wear them in real life and I gave them all away, sadly. No one has any idea where they've all gone."
She's done a far better job of keeping track of her costars more than three decades after they came together for a fun shoot in the winter of 1994.
Text messaging wasn't so much of a thing then, and even these days, "I'm not on a group chat with everyone," Silverstone noted, "but if there is one, I want in." Even without, she's doing quite a bit of rollin' with the homies.
Teaming up with Donovan "was really nice," Silverstone shared. "We were both looking at each other like, 'What are we doing? Are we really here? What's happening right now?'" She also hung out with Stacey Dash (i.e. the Dionne to her Cher) last November and keeps in touch with both onscreen dad Dan Hedaya and teacher Wallace Shawn.
And then there was the night in Chicago a few years back with Breckin Meyer, Donald Faison and Paul Rudd. "So much fun," Silverstone recalled. "We all went dancing and we had a great, great time."
Speaking of Rudd, no, she doesn't get an overwhelming sense of ickiness from the dating-her-kinda-sorta-step-brother plot point: "It wasn't like she was raised with him for God's sake. Her dad probably had so many different wives."
Though, to be fair, "I've given it zero thought," she allowed. "This right here is the most thought I've put into that."
So with everyone making it a point to check in on each other, as Silverstone shared, it doesn't feel butt-crazy to imagine there might be future cast reunions.
"I don't know—stay tuned!" she teased. However, she noted we'll absolutely see more of Cher thanks to her Rakuten collaboration, which includes a few "cute little memes" they created for social media. And if fans have ideas for scenes she can recreate alongside her son Bear (with ex-husband Christopher Jarecki), she's game.
"He's super cute doing them," she raved, noting that having the 11-year-old dress up as "the scariest kind of lawyer"—Cher's dad Mel Horowitz—"killed me. He was so adorable with the big glasses and the jacket."
As for slipping into Cher's most capable outfits for social media, Silverstone still finds the process equal parts terrifying and exhilarating ("When I do those TikToks, part of me is cringing and the other part of me is going, 'This is so fun!'"), but she loves the well-meaning virgin who can't drive every bit as much as we do.
"She has a heart of gold and she really does turn around by the end and evolve," says The Kind Diet author. While she has a hard time imagining exactly what Cher would be doing with her life now, she believes that when the captain of the Pismo Beach disaster relief chooses clothes, "she's super, super conscious and making sustainable choices. So she can take her joy and love of shopping, but be conscious and thoughtful about it. I really love that idea."
Because as a wise woman once said, "'Tis a far, far better thing doing stuff for other people."