13 things you probably didn't know about 'She's the Man'

Throughout the film, Amanda Bynes' character Viola pretends to be her brother Sebastian, so when she was first cast, she was tasked with learning how to act like a guy.

To prepare for the role, Bynes said she and director Andy Fickman went to a shopping mall to observe how men and women interacted.

In a 2006 interview with MSN, Bynes said she knew she could do character work based on her time on "The Amanda Show," but pretending to be Sebastian was difficult for her because she felt awkward in the role.

On stepping into a male role, she said, "It was hard, but I did it and I did something that was not easy for me — so it was a cathartic experience and I felt really good getting it out of me."

In 2018, Bynes told Paper magazine that watching herself acting as a boy sent her "into a deep depression" because she didn't like the way she looked.

"It just really put me into a funk," she told the publication.

"She's the Man" is a modern adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night."

The film used a few character names from the play, like Viola, Olivia, and Sebastian, and it also has themes similar to those found in the play — like changing identities and unrequited love.

"She's the Man" even pays tribute to smaller characters in the Shakespearean work. For example, in the play, Malvolio is another man who loves Olivia but in the movie, it's the name of one character's pet spider.

In the 2018 interview with Paper magazine, Bynes said she pushed for Channing Tatum to be cast in the film.

"I totally fought for Channing [to get cast in] that movie because he wasn't famous yet," she said. "He'd just done a Mountain Dew commercial and I was like, 'This guy's a star — every girl will love him!' But [the producers] were like, 'He's so much older than all of you!' And I was like, 'It doesn't matter! Trust me!'"

On the film's DVD extras, viewers can watch a deleted scene in which Viola, dressed as Sebastian, gets revenge on her ex, Justin.

In the scene, Viola kicks a soccer ball at a target, and Justin gets submerged in a dunk tank.

According to a behind-the-scenes interview, Bynes and Tatum trained for multiple hours each day to prepare for their roles as soccer players.

Bynes said she wasn't really skilled at soccer before filming began, but the on-set coach said he was impressed with how quickly she was able to catch on.

In one scene, Viola, Olivia, and Monique get into a physical fight in the bathroom of a country club. Although the three women had stunt doubles, the actors learned from them and did a lot of the stunts themselves.

"As much as we had our three wonderful stunt actresses there, too, when you see the cut of the movie, it's a lot of our girls pounding each other," Fickman said in a behind-the-scenes interview.

Bynes also said she and the other actresses were "so excited to physically fight each other."

In the film, Tatum's character Duke finds a box of tampons in Sebastian's bag. To keep up the charade, Viola (as Sebastian) shoves the tampon up her nose, claiming they are a handy way to deal with bad nosebleeds.

Later in the film, viewers see Duke using a tampon to stop a nosebleed.

In a 2007 interview with iFilm (found on Channing Tatum's official YouTube page), Bynes said that during his audition, Tatum didn't know he was supposed to take off the plastic applicator, so he stuck the entire tampon up his nose.

Going from Viola to Sebastian throughout the filming process required some difficult costuming.

Bynes said during a behind-the-scenes interview that in scenes when she played Sebastian, she wore adhesive sideburns and eyebrows, chest binding, a muscle suit, and four layers of clothing.

In a 2006 interview with MTV, Bynes said the producers tried to get pop singer Jesse McCartney to play Sebastian since they thought he looked similar to her, but she said McCartney was busy at the time.

Producers ended up casting actor James Kirk, who Bynes said "had oddly similar features" to her.

The screenwriter of "She's the Man," Karen McCullah, also worked on major movies like "10 Things I Hate About You" (1999), "Legally Blonde," (2001), and "The House Bunny," (2008).

In the same 2007 interview with iFilm, Tatum said that the film's director created an environment in which the actors were encouraged to make each other laugh.

Because of this, Tatum ad-libbed some of his scenes — including the one at the gym where he takes a call on his flip phone while he's trying to flirt with Olivia.

At one point in the movie, Duke snaps a towel at Malcolm in the locker room.

In 2014, actor James Snyder shared on Twitter that the towel actually hit him in the eye, so his pained reaction was genuine.

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