Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

1. Inspiration struck for Legally Blonde writer Amanda Brown successful the mediate of her torts lecture. "I wanted to bash a parody of instrumentality school," she explained to Stanford Magazine successful 2001, six years aft she dropped retired to prosecute writing. She lifted astir details consecutive from her ain life, with respective anecdotes making it into the 2001 comedy.

So portion Elle Woods' instrumentality schoolhouse ambitions had to beryllium swapped from Stanford to Harvard erstwhile Brown's alma mater refused to beryllium associated with the film, the writer's emotion of pinkish insubstantial and fuzzy pens remained arsenic did her acquisition listening to a chap instrumentality pupil pontificate connected the request to alteration the word semester to ovester.

2. The toilet insubstantial ballot was besides existent to life, co-screenwriter Karen McCullah having a akin acquisition astatine Virginia's James Madison University erstwhile administrators denied her sorority's petition to person Charmin alternatively of generic. Since they were each opposed to chafing, she recalled to the college's Montpelier Magazine, "I offered my sorority sisters enactment points for stealing replacement rolls from the medication building."

Tracy Bennett/Mgm/Kobal/Shutterstock

3. Cast arsenic Elle Woods conscionable a twelvemonth aft she chopped her ain vocation astatine Stanford short, Reese Witherspoon conducted thorough probe into beingness arsenic a co-ed, sitting successful connected classes astatine Loyola Law School and eating with sorority sisters astatine the University of Southern California. "It's benignant of similar an anthropological study," she explained to Entertainment Weekly successful 2001. "You larn what they eat, however they behave, however they instrumentality attraction of their young, that benignant of thing."

Matthew Davis, meanwhile, loosely based his portrayal of Elle's soon-to-be ex Warner Huntington III (the aspiring legislator connected the hunt for a Jackie, not a Marilyn), on George W. Bush, studying up by reading the then-president's biography. 

Nicholas Hunt/WireImage

4. Witherspoon took connected the relation conscionable months aft welcoming now-24-year-old daughter Ava Phillippe with then-husband Ryan Phillippe successful September 1999.

"Some nights Ava would aftermath up screaming due to the fact that she had the flu and I would walk astir of the nighttime trying to stone her backmost to slumber and past person to beryllium connected the acceptable astatine 7 successful the greeting for make-up!" she revealed to Cinema.com. "And past you propulsion successful the information that I'm expected to beryllium playing a precise bubbly and energetic California preppy who is smiling each the time! I kept thinking, 'I'm going to termination myself! I'm ne'er going to marque it!'"

Moviestore/Shutterstock

Tracy Bennett/Mgm/Kobal/Shutterstock

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

7. Initially considered to play 1 of Elle's sorority sisters, Ali Larter truly grabbed clasp of the accidental to audition for the portion of Brooke Windham, the fittingness phenom accused of murdering her overmuch older husband.

As she was speechmaking the lines from Brooke's jailhouse liposuction confession ("It's not similar mean women tin person this ass!") for manager Robert Luketic, "I retrieve it being like, 'How tin I truly merchantability him and amusement him that I truly privation to bash this portion and that I tin marque this believable and fun," she recalled during the cast's October 2020 reunion. "And I conscionable reached implicit and I grabbed my ass arsenic hard arsenic I could and conscionable went for it. And helium was like, 'All right, you got it girl. You committed.'"

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

8. Alanna Ubach had to get originative to beryllium recruited for the relation of Elle's sorority sister Serena. Jessica Cauffiel—already formed arsenic chap Delta Nu Margot—remembers meeting Ubach successful the bath astatine the chemistry read.

"She's like, 'Hey, hey, are you successful this movie?'" Cauffiel shared during the October 2020 reunion. Having already asked to borrow Cauffiel's reddish lipstick, Ubach past made a somewhat larger request. Cauffiel recalled her begging for assistance booking the job, saying, "'I don't person immoderate money, I request to marque rent, volition you assistance maine marque rent?' She was truthful comic and truthful ballsy, I said, 'Okay.'"

Telling casting directors she needed to marque a speedy call, Cauffiel alternatively returned to the bath to work with Ubach. "We choreographed simultaneous moves," Cauffiel said of their program to amusement they were genuinely successful sync. "I threw the full audition to get her the occupation and she's been my champion person ever since."

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

9. Ubach's ingenuity came successful useful connected set, the histrion nailing her and Cauffiel's manicure scene. While chatting with "this beauteous Vietnamese inheritance actress," she shared astatine the formed reunion, "I thought, 'How comic would it beryllium if we predominant this nail salon truthful overmuch that I've been immersed successful Vietnamese and I've picked up the language?'"

After spending an hour practicing her lines—"She'll ne'er get him backmost with those cuticles"—she asked manager Luketic if she could effort a thing. Joked Ubach, "He was like, 'Yeah, gosh you're weird. Just bash your happening and we'll spot if it works oregon not.'"

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Tracy Bennett/Mgm/Kobal/Shutterstock

11. Davis was adjacent parts frightened and excited for his archetypal large movie relation arsenic Warner. "I was truthful retired of my league," helium recalled during the 2020 reunion. "I virtually was conscionable disconnected the backmost of the turnip motortruck retired of Salt Lake City, Utah. I couldn't get retired of Utah accelerated capable and I stumbled my mode into this movie called Legally Blonde." Very greenish and harboring a spot of a thing for his costars ("I deliberation helium had a crush connected everybody," Cauffiel told The New York Times), "I was crapping my pants each measurement of the way," helium admitted. 

His precise archetypal country saw him interruption up with Witherspoon. "I sat down and each of abrupt Elle Woods was there," helium shared, "and Elle Woods was truthful large and truthful afloat of beingness and I realized that each my choices were wrong."

12. Two decades later, helium inactive gets crap for the callous mode Warner dumped his assemblage sweetheart mid-dinner day ("If I'm going to beryllium a legislator by the clip I'm 30, I request to halt dicking around") earlier going connected to suggest to his "Jackie", chap Harvard instrumentality pupil Vivian Kensington (Selma Blair).

Though he'd spell connected to roles connected Damages, The Vampire Diaries, The Originals and Legacies, "For years and years radical would accidental 'You're that a--hole from Legally Blonde!'" helium shared during the virtual get-together, prompting Witherspoon to travel to his defense. "I'm present to archer radical Matthew Davis is the nicest person!" she insisted. "He was conscionable playing a character."

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

13. Shooting Elle's instrumentality schoolhouse exertion video was really harder than getting into Harvard Law. Okaaaaaay, fine. Not quite. But according to Witherspoon, it was "like, 400 degrees" successful Pasadena on the time she and Cauffiel filmed the excavation country that saw Elle tout her quality to "recall hundreds of important details astatine the driblet of a hat," similar however Hope had been brainwashed by the evil Stefano connected Days of Our Lives. 

Noting however tricky it was to person Margot effortlessly interval successful and retired of the changeable connected her raft, Cauffiel joked, "Wasn't determination a feline with, like, a instrumentality who was pushing it?"

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

14. It was besides awfully blistery when Witherspoon filmed Elle's archetypal time astatine instrumentality school, UCLA's field lasting successful for Harvard. In an outfit that suggested a much autumn successful Boston vibe—a fastener down with a necktie underneath a belted sweater—"I was sweating buckets," the histrion revealed. 

The film's costume decorator had to measurement successful and punctual her however indispensable it was that Elle "totally looks the part," Witherspoon continued. "Sophie de Rakoff was similar 'You are wearing this sweater. You are buttoning up the collar…it has to beryllium this way.' And I was similar 'OK!'"

Tracy Bennett/Mgm/Kobal/Shutterstock

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

16. We were almost memorizing a bend-and-snap philharmonic number. The formed really spent a month working connected a much song- and dance-focused mentation of the nail salon country that saw Elle revealing the determination that successful her acquisition "has an 83 percent complaint of instrumentality connected a meal invitation." Ultimately, though, explained Witherspoon, "It conscionable felt unusual due to the fact that determination was conscionable 1 philharmonic sequence."

17. As for the determination itself that radical still inquire Witherspoon to demonstrate, it was invented astatine a Beverly Hills bar. Screenwriters McCullah and Smith were determination betwixt meetings trying to travel up with a B-plot that could instrumentality spot successful the nail salon, "and we were moving successful weird directions," McCullah told Insider. "Like, possibly it gets robbed, each sorts of brainsick stuff."

Once they realized they could conscionable adhd a simpler storyline astir Elle helping manicurist Paulette get her crush's attention, Smith "jumped disconnected her barstool and was like, 'Like this?' And past she did that move," McCullah continued. The sanction was invented connected the spot. Joked Smith, "There truly should beryllium a placard there, honestly."

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

18. The film's ending got a large makeover in post-production. Originally, McCullah and Smith shared with The New York Times, the movie wrapped with Elle's large courthouse victory, she and Emmett sealing their romance with a buss connected the courtroom steps. They past "cut to a twelvemonth later," McCullah detailed, "Elle and Vivian were bully friends, and Vivian's present blonde. They had started the Blond Legal Defense Club and were handing retired fliers successful the quad." 

That was the ending of Smith's manuscript, McCullah noted, but past trial audiences issued a beardown verdict. "We screened the movie 2 oregon 3 times, and each clip radical didn't privation to extremity it with a kiss," she explained. "They thought it wasn't a communicative astir [Elle] getting a boyfriend, which was truly chill to person radical accidental that."

19. Still, putting unneurotic Elle's inspiring graduation time code required a bit of ingenuity. Witherspoon's portion of the scene was filmed astatine London's Dulwich College adjacent where she was moving on The Importance of Being Earnest (other actors shot their parts backmost successful California). Having changed her hairsbreadth for her relation successful the Oscar Wilde adaption, Witherspoon had to deterioration a wig, arsenic did Wilson, who'd shaved his caput for The Royal Tenenbaums.

Tracy Bennett/Mgm/Kobal/Shutterstock

20. For Witherspoon, who near Stanford aft her freshman twelvemonth to prosecute an acting career, "This is wherever I went to college," she gushed during the 2020 formed reunion. "I didn't decorativeness assemblage but I finished Legally Blonde."

People often recite her infamous lines (the astir repeated: "What? Like it's hard?), but her implicit favourite happening to perceive are the galore vocation occurrence stories. "I don't deliberation immoderate of america knew what this movie was going to crook retired to beryllium oregon however overmuch it would animate young women and young radical crossed the world," Witherspoon shared. "The happening that really truly touches my bosom is much radical halt maine and say, 'I went to instrumentality schoolhouse due to the fact that of Elle Woods.' Which is truly amazing." 

Really, she gets a thrill anytime radical punctuation the movie issuing "a broad statement" to E! News astatine the 2024 Screen Actors Guild Awards: "When anybody starts talking to maine astir Legally Blonde, it truly touches my bosom truthful delight cognize that."