Why the Pants Have Fit So Many Fans

“I think sometimes those tween girl films are not very great, they’re not very sincere,” Tamblyn told the Canadian Press in 2018, explaining why—on the flip side—SOTTP (one and two) worked so well.

Aside from being legit good movies, Tamblyn credited the films’ popularity to the enduring friendship she shares with Lively, Bledel and Ferrera. “I think people really love that,” she said, “this idea that you can—much like women have such deep, complicated relationships with their girlfriends, that the four of us really have that in real life, and that it is kind of this strange sisterhood.”

And they’re not one-size-fits-all, either.

“Some of us have nothing in common,” Tamblyn added. “Like, Blake is a guru of Louboutin shoes. She can figure out how to put an outfit together in two seconds. She’s so immaculate and good at doing that, and I am utterly clueless. I will send her texts of pictures of outfits and be like, ‘Should I wear this?’ She’s like, ‘No, please don’t wear that. Don’t wear cowboy boots with that, we’re not doing that today.’ But the fact that we love each other and we’re so close, I think it’s what people really bond with about the film.”