‘Elle’ Bosses Spill ‘Legally Blonde’ Prequel Secrets: Music, Costumes & Casting Bruiser

Omigod, you guys! Elle, the eight-episode Legally Blonde prequel developed by Reese Witherspoon‘s Hello Sunshine company is finally…nearly here. But there’s not a lot of sunshine when the teenaged Elle Woods (a brilliant Lexi Minetree) learns she’s moving from Los Angeles and transferring into a new high school in Seattle aptly named Rainier West. The move to make her “a fish out of a water again” was an “essential ingredient,” says Lauren Neustadter, President of Film & TV at Hello Sunshine and an Elle executive producer, to this new story, mirroring her future at Harvard Law School.

“It’s bleak, it’s rainy, it’s cloudy, and that’s what she’s feeling inside,” adds co-showrunner Caroline Dries (The Vampire Diaries, Batwoman). “But it’s not just the weather. The kids are really anti-establishment, and Elle has never even thought [about that].”

As she faces bullies in a sea of grunge, Elle has a lot of growing up to do. At least she’s got baby Bruiser on her side. Below, we picked the brains of co-showrunner Laura Kittrell (Insecure), Dries, and Neustadter about everything Elle.

First, let’s talk about the process of adapting a teenage Elle Woods. What were some of the aspects of her personality that you knew would already be present by the time she was a teenager, and what were some of the aspects that you knew would still need to be developed to reach the movie version that fans know?

Laura Kittrell: Something that we talked about a lot early on was that exact question of, who is she when we find her and how does she get to the person she becomes in the movie? The optimism that she has, and her belief in the goodness of everybody, was something that was inherent to her as a character.

Something that I always loved about Elle in the movie was that as much as people were looking down on her, she never believed it about herself. And so, when we were talking about the actual teenage version of that, we thought, well, that is something you kind of have to grow into a little bit. So, when she’s hearing some of these negative comments about herself for the first time, what would it look like if she actually did start to wonder if some of those [comments] were true?

Lauren Neustadter: Reese said we should go back to high school with Elle Woods, and Laura and I had developed together previously, and we had so much fun digging into what [the show] should it be. And so, in thinking about a high schooler in the ’90s, where could Elle Woods go where she would be a complete fish out of water? The answer was clearly Seattle, right? The music, and juxtaposing what she loved and what was loved by all of the kids in a Seattle high school in 1995, it felt so natural, and also like we would be able to mine comedy very effortlessly, but also provide a real emotional journey for Elle to go on. And so it felt like it really provided all the things that we hoped for.

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What’s going on in her new high school that immediately makes Elle feel out of place? It’s definitely not just the rain.

Caroline Dries: It’s not just the weather with Seattle. It’s the clothing, the grunge, the plaid, the grays, the blacks, the navy blues. Everywhere she looks, it just feels so dark. And then it’s also the spirit there.

They’re having an auction for the support staff — that never occurred to Elle to think that maybe the support staff needs money. When she gets there, she has this relentless optimism that she will not surrender. But what makes her not the Elle Woods from the movie is that by day three of being at this school, the kids have worn her out, and she really hits her rock bottom.

The wardrobe department must’ve been shocked when the request for all those flannels came in.

Neustadter: The wardrobe department, literally, was, on the left, pink, and on the right, flannel.

Kittrell: One of the things that was in the pitch for the show, that has now made it into the pilot, is her walking into school for the first time. We do the trope that you see in every teen movie of like, “Here are the geeks and here are the jocks, and here’s the chess club.” Except at this school, everybody looks exactly alike and they’re all wearing flannel. That’s the school summed up perfectly. [Laughs]

The name of the school, too, [Rainier West], it’s an Easter egg. If you look at the initials of the school, there’s a person connected to this who also shares those initials.

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What is she doing to try and win these Seattle teenagers over to her side?

Dries: Her first plan of action is she does something that she calls “getting fluent in Seattle,” which is basically trying to meet them where they are. And over the course of the season, she realizes that the better plan of attack is to still do things her way, but try and compromise with them and finding the center of the Venn diagram where they can all exist together.

Lexi Minetree is so perfect for this role. What made her stand out?

Neustadter: We had almost 5,000 audition tapes come in, and David [Rubin, casting director] and his team went through every single one of them. There were some really talented actresses, but Lexi stood out on a very different level. She was really remarkable. She did an adorable video that sort of mirrored the Harvard application video, it was her take on that, and it was pitch perfect. Her read was incredible. There were many hoops to jump through. There were many different stages of the audition process. Most of it was about acting, but also a lot of it was about really making sure that she embodied all of the values of Elle Woods. It’s a big job to wear that crown, and it fit her perfectly. She’s been unbelievable. She had all eight episodes memorized before we started production on the first season.

That’s very Elle of her.

Neustadter: Very Elle.

Dries: I think that was, by far, the part that we were maybe the most nervous about, was finding [someone to play Elle], because anything we’ve done doesn’t matter if that person can’t do it. And it actually was one of the easier parts for us, because Lexi was so undeniable.

Jessica Brooks/Prime Video

You also had to cast a young Bruiser. Can you tell me about working with baby Bruiser?

Dries: We have three dogs on the show. We have Bruiser, Cruiser, and then we use a stand-in dog that’s a stuffed animal named Snoozer. And then there’s the L.A. dog called Pixie. We mostly just used Bruiser. So, what happened was [we] found the Woodleys, who are animal wranglers, and they had this little dog that didn’t have a name yet. The cutest, tiniest thing. He came and visited us before the show started, he was like, the size of a coffee mug. And they named him Bruiser for us, so that he’s never out of character. So, we’ll write Bruiser into the scripts, and Sara Byblow, our costume designer, loves to design Bruiser’s wardrobe, so we always try to find a matching moment. And we tell them ahead of time, “Here’s what we would like Bruiser to do in the scene,” and then they train him for a couple of weeks, and then, on the day, we hope that it happens. [Laughs] He’s a star.

Let’s talk about the music. The ’90s era of music is so great, and the soundtrack choices here are perfect. What were you most excited to hear in Elle?

Dries: We all kind of grew up in this grunge music time. So, we get to have the fun of grunge 90s, but also ’90s L.A. pop music too. So, if it’s through Elle’s point of view, we tend to do poppier songs like the Mariah Careys. And then we get to do Nirvana and Pearl Jam, and all of our favorite bands growing up. I just want to call out Laura’s love of Spin Doctors, which is deep.

Kittrell: I had a Spin Doctors song scripted from the beginning that people tried to kill and it couldn’t be killed. And it’s in the show.

Neustadter: There’s a Tori Amos needle drop at a very unexpected time. We’re all just in our own personal nostalgia when we’re thinking about things. In Season 2, there’s a needle drop that we all just love so much and it just makes us laugh.

Kimberley French/Prime Video

There’s a particular iconic daytime soap storyline that is happening in the first episode: Marlena’s possession in Days of Our Lives. Who was obsessed with soaps, and who knew that this had to be in here at this moment in time?

Kittrell: I put it in there. And I think it’s the reason Caroline wanted to work on the show.

Dries: Yeah, when I got to page 10 and I read it, I was like, “Oh, OK. Yes. Obviously I want this job.” But we actually consulted TV Guide for a lot of our data history, our show timelines. There’s limited research resources online about what spots were happening when, so we had to go back to the OG TV Guides to read what was happening.

Kittrell: But that storyline has been fun. Of all of the things that our cast is too young to understand the references for, that has been the most fun. Actually putting the tape on and letting them see what was on television was really thrilling. If we can introduce Gen Z to one thing, I really hope it’s that, to be honest.

Elle, Series Premiere, Wednesday, July 1, Prime Video