Legally Blonde Prequel Series’ Young Elle Woods Actress Revealed by Reese Witherspoon

Legally Blonde star Reese Witherspoon posted a new video on social media today, in which she reveals the actress who will be playing a younger version of Elle Woods in the upcoming Legally Blonde prequel series Elle, which is coming to Amazon Prime Video, courtesy of (in part) Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine productions. The actress in question is Lexi Minetree, who is best known for last year’s TV movies The Murdaugh Murders (based on the infamous Alex Murdaugh murders) and Crowdsource Murder. That same year she also did a guest-star spot in the Season 8 premiere of Law & Order: Special Victim Unit.

“Allow me to introduce you to the new Elle Woods!” Witherspoon said in the caption to her video. “After watching so many incredible auditions for the new Elle prequel series on @PrimeVideo, we finally found our Elle. And today, I got to break the news myself! Meet @leximinetree”

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The video isn’t just sweet and endearing – it’s also a pretty good audition for the audience to see. The video sees Witherspoon break the news to Minetree in real-time (or stage real-time at the very least), and we are gifted with the young actress’s genuine elation and surprise at landing this game-changing role. We also get teases of footage from Minetree’s audition tape, which sees her doing an infomercial-style bit as Elle Woods, in a pool and in the gym, always wearing her signature pink color. As Witherspoon explains in the video, she saw the tape and instantly thought “Are we the same person?”

What Is the Legally Blonde TV Series About?

Elle was an idea Reese Witherspoon cracked after seeing Tim Burton revitalize the Addams Family franchise with Netflix’s Wednesday series with Jenna Ortega. In this Elle series, we’ll see how the eccentrically sweet Elle Woods navigated the jungle of high school in the 1990s, before enrolling in law school (the plot of the first film). The show will explore “the life experiences that shaped [Elle] into the iconic young woman we came to know and love.”

“I saw that Wednesday Addams show and I was like, ‘Oh, she was in high school.’ I loved it. I watched every episode,” Witherspoon previously told Jimmy Fallon. “And I was like, ‘We should do Elle Woods in high school because I wanted to see who she was before college, before law school.’”

Laura Kittrell (Black Monday) will be a creator on showrunner of Elle while executive-producing alongside Witherspoon. The original Legally Blonde was based on Amanda Brown’s novel, and the 2001 film became a cultural phenomenon, earning $140 million worldwide and spawning a franchise that includes a sequel film, a direct-to-video spinoff, and a successful Broadway musical. The franchise followed Elle Woods, a fashion-savvy sorority president who defies expectations by pursuing a law degree at Harvard after a devastating breakup.

In addition to this Elle prequel series, Legally Blonde 3 is still in the works, with Mindy Kaling and Dan Goor still attached as writers.