Viewers first encountered Reese Witherspoon‘s Elle Woods in the 2001 movie Legally Blonde and its 2003 sequel Red, White and Blonde.
But when it came time to explore Elle’s high school years, specifically another outsider experience moving to Seattle, 25 years after the original film was released, the team behind Elle, the Prime Video Legally Blonde prequel that began streaming earlier this month, saw an opportunity to spend more time not only with the title character, now played by Lexi Minetree, but also with the characters around her in the form of an eight-episode series that has already been renewed for and completed production on season two.
“When you have hours and hours and hours, obviously you can get so much more in depth with the character and get to know her family so it’s a much more dynamic way to tell the story of this girl,” co-showrunner Caroline Dries told The Hollywood Reporter at Elle‘s New York premiere last month.
Jason Moore — who directed the first two episodes of Elle, serves as an executive producer on the first season and has a resume that includes helming the first Pitch Perfect movie — said the series in particular offered the opportunity to better flesh out Elle’s family.
“I think the key thing that a TV show offers is the depth of time,” Moore told THR at the premiere. “You can explore a character for four to five hours as opposed to only 90 minutes. There’s a depth to Reese’s performance [in Legally Blonde], no doubt about it. Most of the people around her are less deep. Her parents are drawn cartoon-y and the students only get a certain amount of airtime, so you see how she grows in that period. When you can really settle into longer scenes, conversations with her mom and seeing how we’re all shaped by our parents, that’s a slow process.”
Co-showrunner Laura Kittrell said she was particularly excited to have viewers “meet the characters that are formed from whole cloth for the show and the world that we’ve created for Elle that’s separate from the movie.”
Executive producer Lauren Neustadter, who executive produces Elle through her and Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, said that while Witherspoon’s Elle is confident going into Harvard Law, they wanted to see what the character was like during the psychologically challenging high school years, and as Tom Everett Scott, who plays Elle’s father, put it, “an age that’s even more fragile than finishing college.”
And Moore added that while Minetree’s Elle has the same “intrepid spirit” that came across through Witherspoon’s performance, the series focuses more on “how she began.”
“When you ask who is Elle Woods alone in a room wearing a T-shirt, that’s Elle in a nutshell,” Moore said.
The Elle castmembers, writers, director and producers all sang Minetree’s praises.
“Lexi is a dream come true to work with truly,” Dries said. “She’s so funny, she’s smart, she’s goofy, she’s kind, she’s inclusive, she’s all of the things you’d expect to find in Elle Woods. She’s also a great actor, which I don’t think we stress enough because we’re so glowing about her personality. She’s so pitch perfect that it’s almost an afterthought, her performance. We take it for granted.”
Beyond her pleasant disposition and acting ability, Moore was impressed by her attention to detail and preparation.
“You could just tell that this young woman thinks like Elle Woods or Reese or Tracy Flick or these characters, that she’s organized; she’s thoughtful; she’s determined; she’s vocal; she’s articulate; she’s funny; and that’s just who she is naturally,” he said. “Watching the amount of detail that she put in, I’ve rarely worked with actors who have that much forethought. She’s thinking about the whole arc of the series. I think she had all of the scripts memorized when she started shooting the first episode because she’s that kind of actor.”
According to Neustadter, Minetree nailed the assignment from her initial audition tape, famously inspired by Elle’s Harvard Law admissions video essay from Legally Blonde.
“We really saw from that how incredibly smart she was, how much she understood the character and what we were trying to do,” she said. “And then when she read the scenes, she just blew us away. I think she just really channels Reese without ever imitating her, and I think she just does an amazing job of becoming the character of Elle Woods.”
Neustadter hopes the series can provide a “shot of joy and optimism” at a time when the “world feels very heavy.” Meanwhile, Scott, who reconnects with his ’90s roots in the show, shared how he was proud to be part of a franchise that was so inspiring for his own daughter, who accompanied him to the premiere.
Recalling how he got the audition when he was visiting New York with her to help her find an apartment, they watched the original movie, “and my daughter told me how important it’s been to her, this character and how inspiring. And I thought, ‘No pressure, but I should probably book this.’”
The next day he auditioned and got the part and celebrated with her “over a slice of pizza.”
“For me, it’s been really fun and personal,” he said. “I’m glad that this character exists for young women and women of any age and anybody who’s been told they can’t do something that they know they can.”