Celebrity
Rachel McAdams Reveals Her Very Specific McDonald's Pregnancy Craving
The Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret actress had a part-time job at McDonald’s in her teens and still craves the fast food today.
Before she was Regina George in Mean Girls or Allie in The Notebook, Rachel McAdams was making an honest living flipping burgers at her local McDonald’s. While she’s admitted in the past that she probably wasn’t the fast food chain’s greatest employee of all time, the mom of two is still happy to return when a craving strikes. Specifically a strong pregnancy craving.
McAdams, who shares a son and daughter with her partner Jamie Linden, sat down for an interview with CBS Sunday Morning to discuss her role as Barbara Simon in the film adaptation of Judy Blume’s beloved coming-of-age book, Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret. Chatting with Tracy Smith, the actress discussed her return to film, motherhood, and her career beginnings — before Hollywood, that is, in Ontario, Canada.
“It taught me hard work,” McAdams told CBS Sunday Morning of her part-time job at McDonald’s
“Can you still eat McDonald’s now?” Simon asked.
“Yeah, oh yeah, I love it,” McAdams replied. “When I was pregnant, I said to my partner — when we came out of a movie here in LA, it was like 11 o’clock at night — and I said, ‘Take me to the first McDonald’s. I want a fish filet and a chocolate milkshake. And he was like ‘oh you’re pregnant.’”
McAdams told Glamour in 2012 that she started working at McDonald’s when she was 16 and stayed for “a good three years.” Her brother Daniel and sister Kayleen also worked there; in fact, her sister was the manager. “It was a great place to work, but I had a little bit of an OCD thing with hand washing and just didn’t have time. They were like, ‘Hey, the drive-through’s backing up. Stop washing your hands!’ I was not a great employee; I broke the orange juice machine one day,” McAdams told the magazine.
In an interview with The New York Times’ T Magazine in 2008, McAdams said she wasn’t sure how she kept the job for so long. “I’m not sure why they kept me: I am something of a daydreamer and a dawdler, so they would only let me be the ‘friendly voice’ that greeted you when you entered the restaurant. I was slow — I would be organizing the sweet-and-sour packets in the customer’s takeout bag while the line snaked out the door. Even at a fast-food restaurant, I wanted everything just so.”
Everyone’s career starts somewhere, and not only did McAdams learn hard work, as she said, but she found her perfect drive-through order.
