Reese Witherspoon Says She Was Nearly Turned Down For This Defining Role For Being 'Repellent'

When you think about Reese Witherspoon, a few things probably come to mind. 

There’s her legendary book club. There’s her near-identical daughter. And, of course,, there’s her iconic role as Elle Woods in the classic Legally Blonde. 

It’s hard to imagine anyone else playing the role now.

But Reese says she almost got turned down for the part for being, in one producer’s words, “repellent” (sorry, what?).

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter back in 2019, the star said her previous role as the ambitious, ruthless student Tracy Flick in the 1999 movie Election didn’t help endear her to certain execs behind the scenes of Legally Blonde .

“They thought I was a shrew,” she told the publication. 

Reese added that she almost landed several other roles before being passed over at the last minute following the movie. 

“My manager finally called and said, ’You’ve got to go meet with the studio head because he will not approve you [for Legally Blonde],” she added, claiming the producer in question thought she really was her character from Election, and that she was “repellent”.

“And then I was told to dress sexy,” Reese noted.

The Oscar winner said she’s now appalled by the request to “dress sexy”, but explained that she went with it at the time because “you’re 23, you have a baby at home, you need the money and you’re being told that by people who know what they’re doing”. 

The audition process for Legally Blonde was reportedly intense, with Reese saying she’d even met with some producers in character. 

“I remember a room full of men who were asking me questions about being a co-ed and being in a sorority, even though I had dropped out of college four years earlier and I have never been inside a sorority house,” she remarked.

The Morning Show star said she wasn’t interested in the part of Elle Woods herself at first, according to Marc Platt, who adapted the book for screen and pushed her for the part. 

“She was afraid it was too similar to Clueless, which had recently come out, in terms of the character,” he recalled, but said he made the role more appealing by explaining that Elle was a “role model”.