20 facts you might not know about 'Legally Blonde'

Amanda Brown was herself a bubbly, fashion-obsessed young woman when she entered Stanford Law School. She found herself a fish out of water and decided to write a novel based on her experience. That novel became Legally Blonde, which garnered the attention of a film producer before the book was even published.

When Brown’s book was adapted, screenwriters Kirsten Smith and Karen McCullah Lutz were hired to handle the screenplay. In order to do some research, the duo went to Stanford to spend two days on campus to get the vibe required in order to write the script. A chance to walk a mile in Brown’s heels, you could say.

When the studio greenlit Legally Blonde, they were expecting, well, your typical campus comedy. At first, they were correct. The initial screenplay that Smith and Lutz turned in was evidently more akin to American Pie. Eventually, though, the story was turned into a gentle, feel-good comedy, with McCullah Lutz and Smith handling that rewriting themselves.

Australian director Robert Luketic had made a short film that garnered some attention, which turned him into a hot name. He then proceeded to spend two years reading scripts, waiting to find something he liked. Then, he found Legally Blonde. It became his first feature-length movie.

According to Luketic, he knew he wanted Reese Witherspoon to play Elle Woods right from the beginning. Witherspoon was even the first actress to read the script. However, the studio didn’t sign onto the idea right away, so names like Christina Applegate, Alicia Silverstone, and Charlize Theron were also considered. Apparently, one of the producers wanted to cast Britney Spears, but McCullah Lutz was able to dispel him of that notion after Spears’ turn hosting Saturday Night Live.

Though she was still relatively young, Witherspoon was already getting typecast thanks to her turn as Tracy Flick in Election. This was not good, because executives were conflating the actress with Tracy, and Tracy would not exactly be a fit for the role of Elle. Witherspoon had to go through rounds of auditions for the role, and she also had to meet with the studio head in order to prove to him that she wasn’t Tracy Flick.

Paulette — a character added to the script once it stopped being a raunchy comedy by the way — is played memorably by Jennifer Coolidge. Kathy Najimy was also apparently up for the role, which isn’t surprising. What is surprising is that, according to Coolidge, Courtney Love was also considered to play Paulette.

The first name thrown out for the role of Vivian, the new girlfriend of Elle’s ex Warner, was Chloe Sevigny. When that didn’t work out, Selma Blair ended up in the role. Blair and Witherspoon had both previously been in Cruel Intentions together, and the two had become friends and thus were able to find the footing between their characters rather easily.

Ali Larter, best remembered for Varsity Blues or Heroes, was approached to play one of Elle’s sorority sisters. Then, she read the script and really wanted the role of Brooke Taylor-Windham, the fitness instructor on trial for murder. Apparently, everybody else was on board with that, as that is the role she ended up playing.

When Lutz and Smith were writing their screenplay, they pictured Luke Wilson in the role of Emmett, Elle’s new love interest. The casting director wanted Paul Bettany but was talked into Emmett needing to be American, not British. More and more actors were auditioned, until McCullah Lutz finally said, “How about auditioning Luke Wilson for the Luke Wilson role?”

The screenwriters had included a scene where Elle manages to get Judge Judy to appear in her video essay for Harvard. However, they couldn’t get the actual Judge Judy to agree to be in the film, so the whole idea was nixed.

Elle’s fashion sense was not always easy on Witherspoon, who had her hair played with time and time again during the course of the movie. In fact, Elle wears 40 different hairstyles during the runtime of Legally Blonde.

The producers sought out both USC and Stanford to be the school that Elle graduates from before law school. Neither of them would sign off on it, though, as they were worried about how their schools would come off in the movie. As such, Elle graduates from the fictional CULA. And yet, campus scenes for Harvard were shot all over Southern California, including at USC.

To add a secondary plot in the film, and in order to give Paulette more to do, a lot of brainstorming was necessary. A lot of the ideas involved crime, but eventually, the screenwriters came up with the idea of the UPS guy that Paulette had a crush on and the “bend and snap” scene. By the way, that scene was fully choreographed by none other than Toni Basil.

It took a while for them to figure out the ending for Legally Blonde. The first ending, which included a big kiss between Elle and Emmett and a cut one year into the future, failed with test audiences. By the time the idea of Elle at graduation was landed on, Witherspoon was in London shooting The Importance of Being Earnest, so that scene was filmed at Dulwich College. Also, Witherspoon had cut her hair and Wilson had shaved his head, so both actors are wearing wigs in that scene.

MGM was a struggling studio when Legally Blonde was released, and given that this is a feel-good comedy made on an $18 million budget, not a ton was necessarily expected. Instead, Legally Blonde became one of the biggest success stories of 2001. It made its budget back and then some with $20 million in its opening weekend, and it ended up making $141.7 million worldwide.

Granted, nobody is watching Legally Blonde expecting a completely accurate depiction of the world of law, but there are some pretty big legal question marks in the film. Apparently, Elle’s application to Harvard Law is quite off, as it was not possible to submit a video essay, and Harvard Law School even began showing that scene during orientation to say that this was not how they made decisions. More galling from Elle, when she represents Paulette over custody of her dog with her ex she is committing “unauthorized practice of law,” and were she found out, she would have been barred from practicing law in any state.

A couple years later, Witherspoon returned as Elle in Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde. The film takes place largely in Washington, D.C. and deals with political matters. Then, in 2009, we got a cheap, direct-to-video sequel called Legally Blondes. Withersoon did not return, of course, with British twins Camilla and Rebecca Rosso starring instead.

Like several popular movies, Legally Blonde got turned into a stage musical. The show debuted on Broadway in 2007, and while it got mixed reviews, three actors were nominated for Tonys. There was also an MTV reality show which focused on a competition to find the next Elle Woods for the musical. The winner was Bailey Hanks, who reprised the role for a touring version of the show in 2012.

In 2018, Witherspoon agreed to produce and star in a third Legally Blonde film. McCullah Lutz and Smith were hired to write the script once again, with plans for a release in 2020. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic nixed those plans. While there are still plans for a third movie, Mindy Kaling and Dan Goor were hired to write a script from scratch. The film is scheduled for a 2023 release.