The co-stars also reflect on first landing their 'Legally Blonde' roles.
Reese Witherspoon is teasing one major aspect of Legally Blonde 3. The 45-year-old actress and her Legally Blonde co-star, Jennifer Coolidge, recently sat down for an interview with Backstage, during which time they touched on the franchise's highly-anticipated third film.
Witherspoon starred as law student Elle Woods in the first flick, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. As for Coolidge, she played Elle's manicurist-turned-friend, Paulette Bonafonté. Both women reprised their roles in the 2003 sequel and are set to do the same for the upcoming third film, which Mindy Kaling is writing.
"Reese is the keeper of the keys. She knows all the secrets," Coolidge, 60, said. "I know so little of what's happening with that, so I can't wait to hear what Reese has to say."
"Just the idea of being anywhere with Jennifer would be the greatest," Witherspoon gushed of her co-star, before talking about the movie itself.
"The movie is such a feminist movie too, at the time, about really your life doesn't have to be defined by your romantic relationships, it can be defined by your girlfriends, by your sense of self-worth, by your job, your education, your accomplishments," she said. "It's interesting to visit characters 20 years later. Mindy Kaling's writing it, they're in the process of it."
Though Witherspoon stayed mum about plot details, she did tease, "It's a lot of me and this lady [Coolidge], that's all I have to say."
When ET spoke to the Morning Show star in September, she said of Elle, "So many things have changed, but then some things are just so similar."
"Mindy [Kaling]'s busy. Mindy's working hard on it," Witherspoon told ET. "I know she is. And she and I just love each other. We have a great laugh just thinking about, 'What would Elle Woods be doing right now?'"
While Witherspoon's portrayal of Elle Woods has become iconic, she wasn't a shoo-in for the role.
"They had seen me in Election and thought I was a know-it-all little nerd, I guess. Definitely they were like, 'Well, can she be funny? Can she be sexy?' I was like, 'Oh God, I don't know,'" Witherspoon told Backstage. "I remember I had to dress up in the full outfit and I had to go to MGM and meet everybody there and pretend to be the character. It was really fun, nerve wracking and scary, but I ended up getting the job, which changed my entire life."
From Coolidge's point of view, Witherspoon was the perfect choice.
"Reese, you were so locked in to being Elle. I felt like I could've set you on fire and you would've stayed [in character]," the White Lotus star said. "When you get locked in, you're in the zone. You can't penetrate it. You're in. That blew me away, actually."
"That was 21 years ago. I was super serious... I didn't break character because I think I was terrified," Witherspoon replied. "I was just very serious. I really took the job seriously."
"I really needed the job. I was a mom, I had a baby," she added of her now-22-year-old daughter, Ava. "I needed the job really bad. I was just really dialed in and very focused. Now I'm more relaxed. It took years of therapy, though, to relax and let go. It took me like seven years of therapy to relax."
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