Rachael Leigh Cook weighed in on a She’s All That reboot—and explained why the OG worked so well

It’s been 20 years since Rachael Leigh Cook made what quite possibly remains the best use of the lone f-word ever allowed in a PG-13 movie (“Am I a bet? Am I a f*cking bet?!”). That’s right: Today officially marks two decades since She’s All That was released in theaters. The film follows Zack Silar (Freddie Prinze Jr.) a popular teen who makes a bet with his friend (Paul Walker) that he can turn the “scary and inaccessible” Laney Boggs (Cook) into prom queen—of course falling in love with her along the way. The movie was Cook’s breakout role and solidified Prinze’s heartthrob status.

The 1999 rom-com remains one of the most beloved teen movies of the ’90s, and Cook spoke to E! News ahead of the milestone, reflecting on its enduring legacy.

"When you read a script—if that script is a solid 8, 9, really good—you can usually count on the outcome being a solid 7, if you're lucky," she said. "And this movie just lived up to its potential and then some."

However, Cook also admitted that she has a hard time acknowledging the film as a classic, explaining, “It’s difficult for me to call it a classic because to me the classics are like the John Hughes movies I grew up watching. I still feel weird to this day putting myself in any category that could attempt to be as great as those films.”

Like many of its fellow ’90s staples, She’s All That has long been the subject of reboot rumors, and Cook says she’s completely open to the idea, acknowledging that the film was directly influenced by a number of famous works before it. “They should!” she told E! News. “She’s All That, it’s My Fair Lady, it’s Taming of the Shrew—we were not the first. I’m not precious about it.”

You hear that, Hollywood?

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