Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty/Food Network/Hallmark/Andy HendersonThere are certain dates that are heavily associated with individual people. Presidents’ Day, of course, is tied to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, whose birthdays are being celebrated. Christmas Day gets Santa Claus—and, uh, Jesus. And then there’s Oct. 3, a seemingly innocuous date that has become hallowed among pop culture fans. That is the day that everyone thinks of actor Jonathan Bennett.Bennett starred as high-school heartthrob Aaron Samuels in Tina Fey’s 2004 comedy hit Mean Girls. A throwaway line from the film in which Lindsay Lohan’s character, Cady, who has a crush on Aaron, asks him the date. Aaron smiles and says “October 3.” Now, every Oct. 3, we celebrate Mean Girls Day—and fondly think of Bennett in that scene.Of course, there are plenty of reasons to think of Bennett on the other days of the year. The actor is a fixture on the Food Network, where he’s hosted baking competitions Halloween Wars and Cake Wars, and the Hallmark channel, where he starred in the network’s first Christmas romance featuring a gay couple, 2022’s The Holiday Sitter. Mean Girls is back in the zeitgeist, with a new movie musical that was released last month, though, as Bennett tells me, “I don’t think Mean Girls ever left the conversation.”Read more at The Daily Beast.
