When Lexi Minetree auditioned for the part of a teenage Elle Woods in a new “Legally Blonde” prequel series, she went for it with the determination and creativity that the character herself used to apply to Harvard Law School in the original film.
Minetree, “Elle” executive producer Lauren Neustadter says, “actually re-created her own version of the Harvard admission video” featured in the 2001 movie that starred Reese Witherspoon, “and she hit it out of the park.”
The preparation to play Elle in the new Amazon Prime Video series didn’t stop there. Minetree says she watched “Legally Blonde” about “200 times at this point,” studying Witherspoon’s performance, but steering clear of an outright impression of the Oscar winner.
“Reese brought her essence to the character,” Minetree says. “And that is something that no one could ever replicate. It would be a disservice if I tried to do that, so I tried to bring the parts of myself that I thought were reflected in Elle.”
Fish out of water
In “Legally Blonde,” we met Elle as a sorority girl who applies to Harvard Law School, gets accepted and is a star in her class.
“When I read the script it reminded me a lot of old Goldie Hawn movies, or ‘Working Girl,’” Witherspoon told the AP in 2001. “You think this girl is certainly not very smart because of the way she speaks and the way she looks, and then she just turns the tables on everybody and becomes smarter than everyone, and I just love that.”
Like the film, “Elle” underscores that people don’t have to sacrifice their true selves to achieve success.
We meet Minetree’s Elle at her blowout 16th birthday party, shortly before her parents (played by Tom Everett Scott and June Diane Raphael) break the news that they’re all moving to Seattle.
The students at her new school are less than friendly and shun Elle’s sunny disposition and pink attire. This is Seattle in 1995, and both grunge music and its culture are everything. Even the cheerleaders wear flannel.
It takes time for the student’s to warm up to their new classmate, whose ice breaker is “I like iced coffee, the month of July and when people dress kind of tennis-y even if they don’t play tennis.”
“Such an integral part of the ‘Legally Blonde’ IP is not judging a book by its cover,” says Chandler Kinney, who plays Kimberly, one of Elle’s schoolmates who is particularly judgy — at first.
Enduring influence
The time seemed right to explore more of Elle’s story when Witherspoon — who’s also a producer on the new series — noticed the pressures young women feel to live up to unrealistic standards curated online. Studies have linked social media to mental health issues among teens.
“She felt like this was the right moment to give Elle to the next generation,” Neustadter says of Witherspoon’s desire to explore the character as a young woman.
“Elle reminds us that we should feel good about being ourselves, feel proud of who we are and to be kind and good to others,” she adds. “It feels like a good reminder for this moment in time.”
Telling an origin story of this character just makes sense, Raphael says. We’ve seen prequels about all kinds of male characters — but “we rarely get to do that with the iconic female characters that we love,” she adds.
Surprise cast member
Viewers will recognize a familiar face in the first season of “Elle.” James Van Der Beek, who died in February after a diagnosis of bowel cancer, plays Dean Wilson, superintendent of Elle’s new school and a mayoral candidate.
Raphael had the most scenes with Van Der Beek and says it was an honor to work with him.
“It’s so special to me,” she says. “His work on the show is so lovely, and he is such a lovely person. I’d never met him before, and I was so excited to work with him. I was really blown away by his charm and his charisma and mainly his ease.”