LEGALLY BLONDE: How Reese Witherspoon Learned to Bend & Snap

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I go here. You go where? Harvard. Law school. You got into Harvard Law? What, like it's hard? Hello, guys, and welcome to another episode of Hollywood Gold. I'm your host, Daniela Taplin-Lundberg, and I'm here with my right hand, Becca Camerata. Hey, Bex. Hi, how are you? Bex, how much did you love that story that Vanessa told that Vanessa was talking about our pod at a dinner party and the guest was like, you mean Bex? Like everyone knows you as Bex now? I never thought that I would be any sort of famous, but famous because of our podcast, because people are actually listening to it and enjoying it. It's crazy. I love it. It's so exciting because we love doing this so much. So I don't know. people are like oh my god we love your podcast and then they start treating me differently and I'm like guys it's just me well it's so funny because like we do this into a void right like it's just it's just us like looking at each other when we record these things and then it's not like we we get a reaction from people so it's weird to think about the life that it has after this right after this moment you're like oh right we just go about our lives but like people find this and listen to it and it's a thing. P.S. guys go and get that Stay Gold merch. All my family members have bought them and my YPO group I just want to give them a shout out they all bought them this weekend but they're really wearing them around and they're so cute. They're great quality they're really cute yeah and you can get either the ones specifically for the podcast that say Hollywood Gold yeah or ones that are more for our company in general that say Stay Gold which is also just a great philosophy for life. Like stay gold, stay true to who you are, you know? Yeah. Staygoldfeatures.com. Anyways, we are about to do an epic pod with Kiwi Smith who is one of the writers on Legally Blonde. And by the way, many movies that I love. This is just the first interview we're going to do with her. But she's going to take us through the whole process of writing Legally Blonde and like the sort of magical story of what that was. And I cannot wait to get going because she is a riot. And, you know, we're working with her a bit right now on something else. So it's just like such a joy to hear her story and her rise. And so let's get going. Let's do it. Kiwi Smith, my friend, I am so excited to be interviewing you today. you I met you like I think like 15 years ago in Soho or something like it was a very weird like fun meeting we had I think we walked around Soho you probably don't even remember are you kidding me I remember it vividly it was so exciting I remember I think we had like a coffee and then we did walk around it felt like to me I never wanted that meeting to end and I just wanted to be with you the coolest new york producer we were a couple young babes just like we were starting out the bit you were ahead of way ahead of me but like we were just like had the energy you know like we could take on the world yes and i feel like we still have that even though we're a little we still do a little bit wizened speak for yourself daniela okay so kiwi we're gonna go back into the memory banks of legally blonde and like how it came to you the whole arc of this incredible legacy film that you know i watch at least four to five times a year so go for it beautiful okay well i remember my writing partner karen and i i think our movie 10 things i hate about you was which was our first script sale and our first thing that was being produced. It had been purchased. I can't remember where we were in the process of that, but it was underway, that movie. And we were sent by two different producers, the manuscript for Legally Blonde, which was by Amanda Brown. And it had been circulating in Hollywood. It had been not met with much success from publishers, but it clearly had such a visceral concept, hilarious concept, hilarious character that she smartly found an agent to represent the rights to this unpublished book. So it was unpublished when it was circulating around Hollywood. It was. Okay. And just to back up real quick, did you feel like you and Karen were sort of the hot writers? Oh, yes. Okay. It was a really exciting time. There also weren't that many female writing teams in Hollywood. So we had a little bit of a novelty to us. And we had had the good fortune of having 10 Things sell and then also get greenlit pretty quickly after it was sold because Disney wanted to make a teen movie and they had option two of them and 10 Things was the one that they chose. Amazing. So we'd like won that great teen movie lottery of 1998. Oh my God. Amazing. And Kiwi, again, that movie is loosely based on Taming of the Shrew, right? That was a little bit of a takeoff on Shakespeare, which was that a thing at that time? Did you sort of start that trend or was that a little bit in the ether at the time? Well, we noticed that Amy Heckerling brilliantly adapted Emma into Clueless, And that was a huge hit. And then Romeo and Juliet was in production. And so Karen and I had written one script that didn't go well together. And we did consciously decide we want to do a teen movie and we should adapt a classic the way that Amy Heckerling did. So we were following in her brilliant way through and through. However, it was before the days of the IP craze. I don't even think that word was being used. We were saying like looking for a myth or a fairy tale or a fable, you know, like we used ancient words like that. And we went to libraries and we read Cliff's Notes and we asked all of our friends. And it was like a three month, very serious process to try to find what would be the best thing to adapt into a teen movie. Fortunately, I went out for drinks and one night with a buddy of mine from college named Rich Jones. And he was like, you guys do Timmy the Shroom, yo. And I was like, Rich Jones. Great idea. That's the one. So anyway. I love Rich Jones. Okay. Okay. So that's it. We'll have to do another episode just on that one. Yeah, I know. I know. Amazing cast. We could totally go down a rabbit hole. but we could cut to amanda brown yeah good things were happening to us donald deline had moved from disney to paramount he gave us a blind script deal as part of his producing deal at paramount that was really exciting and what a beautiful thing you have this guaranteed opportunity truly like a what that i mean we didn't know what a blind script deal was like he wants to give us one of those. And very exciting. So his executive, Donald Deline's executive, sent us the manuscript for Legally Blonde. Her name was Jane Park. She said, this would be perfect for you. And like maybe a couple of hours later, another executive who worked for Mark Platt also sent us the manuscript for Legally Blonde and said, I think this would be perfect for you. So we read it and we told both producers that we really loved it and saw a movie there and i mean how could you not the concept was so great and the character was so great and there was a lot of plot to follow in in the story um amanda gave us a whole runway but it was fictional right it wasn't like based on her life or anything it was a novel yeah it was a novel and there was maybe some chatter that it was inspired by her adventures. She went to Stanford, actually. So the book was set in Stanford, not at Harvard. Okay. So she was a sorority girl from LA who went to Stanford Law School. Amazing. Oh my God, I love it. Yes. So then what happened was Paramount passed on it because they had felt like it was too similar to clueless you know here's a bubbly sunny california girl and they politely opted out and mark platt sent it to universal who passed that was where his first look deal was they passed and so then he took it to mgm where there was a new regime led by a guy called chris mcgurk who i think mark had known through they worked together in some other capacity okay so mgm buys the book for Mark. And then Mark circles back around to us and says, you know, come in for a meeting and let's talk about it and tell me what you think of the book and what we should do. So we go in for a meeting and I am not sure, Daniela, if he, he might've been meeting with a few other writers at this point in the process. I'm not sure, but he's such a classy gentleman that you never got the feeling that you were in an audition waiting room with a bunch of other people. And what happened was that conversation then led to another conversation and slowly we begin kind of like building what the adaptation would be what the quote-unquote take would be and that took maybe probably like a couple of months but you know and I remember in one of those meetings 10 Things I Hate About You which had been shot I remember him showing us like tracking for what our movie would be doing, which is like a, we never heard of the word really before. We were like, oh my God, we're with this like fancy, powerful producer who's telling us what tracking is. And yes. So then what happened was, I feel like he realized or he decided that we were going to be the writers that he would take into MGM. Now this is unique because how lucky were we as new writers to be the only writers that a producer brings to a studio to pitch on this new project? Cut to 10 years later, what you find out is usually producers are often bringing three writers or maybe even four or sometimes just two, but usually producers are doing this kind of play it safe. Let me give the studio all the options of the different writers that they could hire and mark did not do that mark just brought us and i will forever love him for that and i will we were blessed with that and i don't know if we knew how lucky we were in that situation to have him saying like these are my gals these are in yeah yeah yeah um so i was wearing pink pants and i think karen wore some element of pink as well. We didn't want to be too extra, but we were a little bit extra. So we went in and we did our take. I mean, we were so nervous and then Mark said it went great. And then very quickly after they made our writing deal to write the movie. And then we began writing the script and we began, I mean, like the best development process I think I've ever had with a producer. He was just so in it with us and had such smart, surgical, fun ideas and never gave up on us, never wanted to replace us, never did replace us. When we turned in the first draft of the script, he really liked it. We did a few rounds of notes with him before he gave it to the studio, maybe like three drafts. Then we gave it to the studio. Then they had some notes. And then I remember like late in the process of this is good. This is feeling good. This feels like a movie we can make. Mark felt like there was a set piece that was missing in the second act. He felt like the whole movie was there, except there needed to be a set piece. so we spent about two weeks pitching the most terrible ideas for what a set piece could be oh and he also was like there needs to be more of a b plot leading that will give us that will generate a set piece so we had all of these ideas like paulette is maybe dealing with some kind of immigration issue l has to help her solve that or the nail salon is robbed in like really terrible but I think it kind of became clear that the the b plot should be around Paulette because that was outside of the law school environment and it just gave us a world that felt a little different so we were kind of at wit's end we were like oh no we're never going to be able to figure this out what is this piece story what is this set piece and then one night we went to a peninsula hotel. We had a drinks meeting with someone. I cannot remember who, but after the drinks meeting, we were like, Oh my gosh, what are we going to do? And I was like, we ordered more Mopitos. And then we started talking, Oh, what if Paulette, maybe it should be a romance set piece. Like maybe Paulette's got her eye on the UPS guy. And I can't remember who, which one of us was pitching what at this point, but I do remember that maybe Paulette does something to get his attention. Elle could teach him something to get his attention with UPS guy. And I jumped up and I was like, she should do the bend and snap. No, stop. And I did it in the lobby of the Lermitage and Kara was like oh my God that just so ridiculous that this has to be it Wait Kiwi did you come up with the bend and snap like just at the moment, like in the moment? Yes, yes. Thank you, Lermitage Mojitos. Oh my God, that's iconic. They should give you like a Lifetime Achievement Award just for that. That's incredible. You've inspired so many other films and scenes from that. Yes. Okay. So then Mark was like, we said, we think we have an idea. And Mark's like, well, come to my office and pitch it to me. So we go to his office. He's sitting in his, his like comfy chairs and we pitch out like, okay, here's our idea. I'll let UPS guy, Elle's going to teach her kind of how to get the UPS guy's attention. And then I leap up and I'm like, and she does the bend and snap. And Mark is just like, oh, my God, what did I just watch? And then he laughed. And what was crazy, though, Daniela, was then when it came time to choreograph this number, Mark was like, they hired this choreographer named Tony Basil, who had famously just done the choreography for Bring It On. And she also sang this song. Oh, Mickey, you're so fun. You're so fun. You pull my money, Mickey. so she's kind of like an 80s icon she gets hired to do the choreography and mark's like you're gonna have to go over to her house and show her the bend and snap so i do i go over to her house i'm like i am in the presence of this like amazing witchy cool goddess pop star ballerina lady um she's like a go-go dancer in the 60s she's so wild and cool and um i do it for her and she's like oh i like this i like i show me the step again she called it the step and then she's like do that again oh you got the little chicken wings i like those little chicken wings that you're doing and then and then somehow i think that led to me going to a rehearsal and like showing other dancers this i remember vividly being in a studio on fairfax and wilshire showing dancers and then also i remember karen and i going on another day and watching reese and jennifer Coolidge build that choreography. At this point, Robert Lukenik had already come onto the movie, so I've... You'd been phased out as the choreographer at that moment. Yes. In my experience, it has a 98% success rate of getting a man's attention and, when used appropriately, it has an 83% rate of return on a dinner invitation. Wow. It's called The Bend and Snap. Feeling more confident in yourself can start with understanding the support available and MedExpress helps you explore weight management options from home. Begin with our short online consultation reviewed by UK registered clinicians. There are no appointments or waiting rooms. Everything is handled online. If eligible, treatment arrives discreetly at your door with professional support from clinicians throughout your journey. Discover a more confident you at medexpress.co.uk podcast. Selling your van can be super simple if you choose we buy any van. They're on average 11 minutes away, so you can get it all sorted in under an hour. If only they could make keeping your van clean simpler. And spotless. Oh, for crying out loud. We Buy Any Van. Selling made simple. To get a quote in 30 seconds, enter your reg number now at webuyanyvan.com. And that's why you should vote for me, Elle Woods, future lawyer for the class of 2004. So you pitched the bend and snap. That becomes the second act set piece that you were looking for. Was it ready after that? It was ready. And we were then off to the races. Does the studio give it like a flashing yellow, a green? Like, are they ready to go? You have to attach the lead first. Tell me what happens then. They wanted a director. So they had just seen this movie at Telluride, a short film called Tiziana Buberini. It's an Australian movie with a young up and coming Australian film student named Robert Lucetic. Now he's on his own journey, having shown his short at Telluride, having been wooed and courted and flown around by all of these fancy studios. He's been meeting with people. He's been doing his own dance. Mark gives him the script and he loves it and says he wants to do it. So we collide in this perfect kind of, I don't know. It makes me a little emotional thinking about it because we were both these young kind of up and comers. And I mean, we had had one movie made. I don't know. It just, it felt really magical meeting him. And he was only like 27. And so just like filled with light and energy and ideas and pop and sass. And we ended up going to take him to UCLA to go to sorority rows so that he could like understand the American Greek system, which he was unfamiliar with. So we bonded with him in that way. Okay. He also, when he came on to meet with Mark and to talk about what he wanted to do in his visual take, he had the idea for the opening sequence. He really wanted to open the movie with this kind of ballet of a girl riding a bicycle through this Greek system, this fantasy land. And we follow her up to Elle's room and she delivers this invitation. And that's how we find Elle in her room. Because I think in our original draft that he'd read, she was just in her room. We didn't have a cinematic opening the way that Robert designed it. So that was a really cool addition that he brought. That's cool. Then there was like the casting conversation. And I remember Mark would call us and say, what about this person? And, you know, we were not producers on the movie. So, but he kept us very in an inner circle in a way that was deeply wonderful. Yeah. The name Britney Spears was briefly floated. Ooh. Yeah. Post Crossroads. post-Crossroads, I think. But then Election had just come out. And once we talked about Election and we talked about Reese, it was just like, I don't even think the script really was ever physically sent to anyone else. There was maybe loose conversations about people conceptually, but it just felt like, oh my God, this is the woman to play Elle, because she's so smart. And at that time, she'd done Cruel Intentions as well. Oh, at that time, she'd also gone to Stanford and she'd done one year of Stanford and she'd come back and to focus on acting full time. Did not know that. That is crazy. Okay. And it was just so wild because everyone was like, you know, she's really smart. She went to Stanford. It just makes you realize this sort of sexism of the industry at that time. Oh, no, there's only one really smart woman. but she's actually smart she yeah yeah she's actually smart and uh he's actually funny and she's actually beautiful and she's all these things she had just had her first child ava and she maybe done an episode of friends after giving birth am i getting this right i really need a fact checker like right around this but she hadn't like committed to her her next leading role post giving birth okay this just felt like this was going to be a very big deal and just the perfect fit and she then read the script we had not met her she met mark they went to mgm together loved her and she was hired. From your perspective, was your impression that she was very eager to sort of like take on the mantle of like romantic comedy queen? Because sometimes actresses are like, oh, I want to be more serious. Do you have any sense of that? I mean, it's more clouded by reading interviews with her in the subsequent years, probably. But I do think she saw it as an opportunity to lead a big studio comedy and just kind of step up into a next level. Because she had done Election, which was a studio comedy, but it was a dark comedy. And she had been in a few teen projects that were, I mean, Cruel Intentions was a hit. She'd been in Pleasantville. That was a massive New Line movie that was a hit. Oh, totally. Love that movie. Such a great movie. So she'd been consistently, she'd done a movie called Nobody's Fool with Paul Newman. I mean, she'd been consistently doing all of this amazing work and she peppered it with indies like the movie that i was obsessed with her performance in was called freeway which was like a 90s really pitch black dark take on little red riding hood where she plays red riding hood and she's like a white trash southern girl and she gets picked up by the big bad wolf played by keeper sado and and then proceeds to go on this kind of like crazy kind of semi-killing spree i need yes i totally remember that. And then she did another movie. I think it was maybe called Fear with Mark Wahlberg. Oh, my God. And Melissa Milano. Do you remember that one? Yes. But I sort of remember her doing all sorts of interesting things, you know, like some varied complex. This felt like a real choice to be like, all right, we're going to own this studio comedy. And that feels like the smartest career decision of her life. But it wasn't so obvious maybe from the choices she had been making. yes she had all of these incredible interesting movies under her belt yes and had all the comedic chops and the dramatic chops and i'm just happy she she wanted i know so then what happened do you remember like the casting process from there on in because like everyone was so perfectly cast jennifer coolidge and selma blair and just a great great cast of characters i do remember meeting Reese for the first time, we went to Chateau Marmont and she wanted to give us her some notes on the script that she had. She had a couple of really great notes. One was to specify the sorority girls, Serena and Margot. She felt like they were both feeling a little bit the same and she wanted to make sure they felt different and unique. That was one note that really stood out to me. And I think she had another very smart surgical notes. And that was really exciting. And I don't even remember Mark being at that meeting. Just the three of you. Maybe I was just so dazzled by her that everything else disappears in my mind. But that was the level of trust that he was giving us. I love that. Oh, this was a major thing. Christian McLaughlin, who was the executive of Mark Platz, who had found the book, let us know that apparently Stanford was not going to give us permission to use their name in the movie. oh my god so it was a little bit like an oh no oh shit what are we gonna do and so in the deep background now i don't remember this as vividly but i know for sure what happened is that apparently there's this manager who's an amazing manager named alissa bradenburg i love alissa oh my god i just went to the madonna concert with her like three weeks ago kiwi i'm not even what i'm not even kidding oh my god yeah okay it's crazy go alissa somehow is in touch with christian and somehow alissa suggests harvard well i she needs to be on the pod could you just do a separate little micro yes i will like phone her right into this phone okay um she is the person who somehow manages to get harvard to agree to be the school in the movie because she went to harvard law yes oh so somehow it's like she knew christian or was talking to him and then anyway so so we have elissa bradenberg to thank for the most brilliant stroke of movie making luck which is that now the movie isn't about a girl going to stanford law school which is just you know five hours away from la now she's going to harvard law school i love that i love that layer of it by the way it was like so much more interesting i think yeah like the whole east coast preppy thing yeah she's way more of a fish out of water in it it serves the story so much better you know what it reminds me of kiwi when et tried to get m&ms to be the official candy that et ate and then m&m said no and reese's pieces became the official candy of et that he ate and it was like the greatest happy accident ever i'm so glad stanford said no wow yeah yeah that is it's kind of that's the wild thing about making movies, right? Is it sometimes you just have to trust these accidental things that happen all throughout the process, whether you're losing a location or a cast or availability. And sometimes it lines up in this alchemistic way where you get a beautiful result. And other times it never really quite course corrects, but we won't talk about those things in this podcast. And frankly, for this movie, Legally Blonde, it all felt charmed like that. Everything felt like it was flowing in a direction that was only serving the movie. So did you have to do a big rewrite when it became Harvard? Not really. Not as big as trying to find a B plot and a second exit. The Harvard change seems pretty easy. So then what happens after Rees, Joseph Middleton is brought on to cast the movie. He cast Josie and the Pussycats. I think he was like the universal casting guy. He cast American Pie. This is the legendary man who's cast all. He cast Bring It On. Oh my God. He cast all the young stars. Cool. And so he starts, I think there's like, we're in the days of fax machines, Daniela. Yeah. Lists are being faxed back and forth, things like that. But Karen and I keep, somehow we get his number and start faxing him. And we start, and he's like, please go away. I would prefer to not have these writers faxing me all the time. And namely, we were like really excited about the role that we thought of, the Emmett role, which we at one point I believe we written it into the script as Luke Wilson Like his name was maybe in the script Like we just wrote it for Luke Wilson This was so we would always fax him Oh what about Luke Wilson Have you reached out to Luke You know be like no response From when were you a Luke Wilson fan? Was it like old school? It was Bottle Rocket Baby. Oh, 100%. Bottle Rocket Baby all the way. Yep. Right there. What a debut. I mean, for those brothers. I just love that movie. That was I saw that in the theater and I stayed and watched it in the theater like a second time immediately after. I couldn't move. Wes Anderson's first movie, Loyal Listeners, where Luke and Owen Wilson make their screen debut. Yeah. Yes. Their first film. And Owen and Wes Anderson wrote the movie, I think, too. And I think there's a third Wilson brother that might be in it. Andrew Wilson. Andrew. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Now, also, fun fact during this time, drew Barrymore was you know kind of the goddess queen princess of Hollywood she's dating Luke Wilson during this time they had made a movie called home fries yes directed by Dean Pariseau who you should have on the pod yeah just bring all the ledge and um but I think Luke had done home fries before Legally Blonde he had like a kind of quirky heartthrob status already and Karen and I have pretty different tastes in men, women, clothes, houses, cars, whatever, anything. You name it, different tastes. But we agree on Luke Wilson. So, cut to, there is going to be a table read at MGM. And a lot of the roles have been temporarily cast by Joseph. Oh, wait! Let me say one thing before the table read. I love it. So, Robert had a beat in his bonnet. He wanted to cast chloe sevigny as vivian and which and chloe sevigny he met with chloe sevigny and chloe sevigny did not want to do a big commercial popcorn movie she wanted to stay in her indie red lane so enter selma blair who was so great so good and reese had worked with before right like they had done cruel intentions yeah oh they were super close from cruel intentions and i think that might have been maybe like Reese's idea or so again I'm not sure how that happened but got to the table read and I'm not sure if someone was in the table read the only thing I remember I'm pretty sure that like was there a guy reading the Emmett part there was a guy reading the Emmett part who wasn't probably going to end up playing Emmett and then after the table read which went amazing. And all the studio execs were there and there was so much laughter and so much delight. And it just felt like, wow, this is the movie coming to life. It was really cool. That does not always happen. That does not always happen. Really? We just interviewed John Glickman about While You Were Sleeping and it was like the worst table read of all time. And like two of the actors tried to quit. Oh, no. Wouldn't that just be horrible? Yes, that would be horrible. Okay, but yours was a success. It was a success. And I wish I remembered more about who exactly was in this table read. But I just remember that after the table read, everyone was on a high. We meet Joseph Middleton in person for the first time. He's like, hi. We're like, that was great. He's like, that was great. Suddenly we're like, okay, we're not these annoying people. He's like, hey, what's up? We're all feeling good. He's like, so what do we think about the Emmett role? And I really like Gabriel Mock. And we're like, we watched that audition. And Karen said something like, Gabriel Mock is so hot that it looks like he's going to drop to his knees and immediately start going down on Elle right away. Like the sexual, it's like he's way too hot for this role. She said something very like, and he laughed. He loved it. And we're like, what about Luke Wilson? And he's like, Luke Wilson. that's a really good idea it's like the faxes it just got thrown inside he just was throwing the faxes in the trash I don't know bless him I mean I probably would if I were him too because he's way better at casting movies than we were but he's like that's a great idea let's do it and so then all of a sudden he makes an offer and then it happens and I think Luke maybe meets with Reese or talks through I don't know those again those machinations but it was just like oh my god so did you tell Luke your role in him getting the role I don't remember saying that oh my god I would dine out on that story all the time I think we did say to him this has always been in our mind the Luke Wilson role so I think we said that to him and he responded with kind of a cool that's cool you know like something like that very low key we weren't sure what to say after that and then he would just kind of go and read the New York Times and we would be like, oh my God. So there wasn't a lot of verbal sparring going out with Luke on set? No. Okay. No. But there was everything else. He was giving all of the wonderful Luke Wilson-ness. Oh my God, he's amazing. He's so good. And he and Reese got along great. This is an ad from BetterHelp. Some days, it feels like you're carrying something no one else can see. Stress, grief, responsibility. The kind of heaviness that doesn't show up in photos but follows you everywhere. You don't have to hold it alone. With BetterHelp, you can talk to someone who helps lighten what you've been carrying for far too long. Take the weight off. Start therapy anytime from anywhere online with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash randompodcast for 10% off your first month of online therapy. Selling your van can be super simple if you choose We Buy Any Van. They're on average 11 minutes away, so you can get it all sorted in under an hour. If only they could make keeping your van clean simpler. And spotless. Oh, for crying out loud. We Buy Any Van. Selling made simple. To get a quote in 30 seconds, enter your regidumman now at webuyenyvan.com Miss Bonifonte is entitled to full canine property ownership and will be enforcing said ownership right now. Huh? Tell him, Paulette. I'm taking the dog. Dumbass Okay, so before we get to the Being on set part Now we go back into this Rick Kidney The line producer Who does this incredible thing As we're starting to then Build up and firmly cast the movies Well, first of all, he gave us a lot of With Robert, he asked us our opinions About a lot of Like Serena and Margot We fought really hard for Alana and Jessica Caulfield. There were other actresses who were about to get offers that we, I'm not going to name them on this pod, but we loved Ilana and Jessica so much. And Rick did this really cool thing where when rehearsals started, because he built in a time for there to be like maybe a week of rehearsals with Reese and Robert and the other cast members. rick said to us i think you guys should come to rehearsal and it was in like sherman oaks in this bank building where we were had the production office and he just felt like we should be there in case there was any motivation questions or if lines got changed we could just make those changes right away there rick was encouraging this rick was encouraging this yeah rick kidney said that Then he asked Robert, who was a first time feature filmmaker, is that cool if Karen and Kiwi come? And Robert said, sure. Great. No problem. How amazing is this? That never happens. I mean, I've heard so many stories of like the line producers trying to just cut costs and not bring the writers and like, you know what I mean? Keep it tight and all this stuff. It's so amazing to hear that. Well, let's be clear. He was not paying us to attend these rehearsals. We were not adding to the budget. I think Rick was probably saving money because he was like, I'm going to have to figure out who's going to, you know, transpose these line changes, etc. He was trying to streamline the process. Saving money in his own way. Yeah. But to me, it also felt like a deeply supportive, empowering and encouraging community team building thing that he was doing. And he really wanted Robert to be able to focus on this rehearsal process with the actors and be present in that as opposed to worrying like, oh, a line got changed and who's going to actually note that. And in your experience, who does? How do the how do lines get? Well, like so often these days, either the writer and the director of the same person or the director sort of like takes over. but who's actually remembering what in the rehearsal i mean kiwi you know how many independent films i've done like we're not getting that much rehearsal it's like if we get three days that's really good but you're right it's often like the assistant to the director like taking the notes and passing them to the writer and that kind of thing okay so then do you go to set we go to set we're invited to set we can go to set whenever we want open door policy. Do you pop by or do you like kind of set up shop? I popped by. I think Karen maybe was there more. Okay. And also the movie was a, you know, it was a $15 million budget. It was very under the radar. There wasn't hype around it. There was no internet. There were no eyes on us. We were a complete sleeper underdog movie. So I think that's another reason that it was Mark got to just be, and he had the trust of the studio and he got to just fully be in charge and running it. And he really did trust everybody. I mean, he trusted Rick Kinney, the line producer. He trusted us. He trusted Robert. And he knew that he had an excellent creative partner in his star Reese Witherspoon. And he had also made my best friend's wedding as a studio executive. And on that film, he forged a really close bond with Julia Roberts. And I think he knew in his heart, like, this is how it works. Like, I'm going to team deeply with my star and he and I are going to lead, kind of, you know? So did you feel like Reese was a real leader on the set? Like she was setting the tone and like, she knew the job. A million percent. Yeah. She was just so A plus on her game. She was like setting the bar of excellence in every level. And, you know, she had to do a lot of crazy things before those things happen. Like she had to get her hair tested for it to be the perfect shade of blonde, you know, he had to get her bikini body ready after having a baby. She had to do a lot of like kind of external bullshit. Right. But also, you know, creating the character. That's a part of it as well. And like, she was very nervous in that bikini scene where she pops out of the hot tub and says, I'm Elwood, you know? Yeah. That was stressful for her. She wasn't that kind of like presentational, here's my body kind of actress. And not that there's anything wrong with that that just wasn't her style um she was key in hiring Sophie Durakoff-Carbonell to do the costumes and Sophie was like a she was like a fashion editor I'm like a magazine editor or something and this was her first gig doing costume design and I mean the costumes were spectacular and very risky yeah they were bold choices and so I feel like hair and costume those were really big key roles on the movie oh i will say one thing before we get to that is at the wrap party for the movie we met amanda brown the author for the very first time oh my god and we had never been allowed to really talk to her because i think there was concern that she would she might i don't know if that's a really weird thing with you know producers sometimes well i think we were post ann rice there was this thing where ann rice had these books interview with the vampire and she famously had approvals and she like went in there and mess everything up and so yes hollywood's very gun shy about authors i mean too much control but anyway we meet amanda and she was like oh my god i love what you guys have done i love the script you're brilliant and she was so sweet and is still a friend to this day and at the wrap party matt davis who plays warner had just come off making this joel schumacher movie and he brought his co-star to the wrap party a young actor from ireland named colin farrell colin farrell was at our wrap party it was crazy it would never he done this movie tiger land was that what it was called anyway so colin farrell was there at our wrap party which was a quite a small event in this bar on wilshire and now i'm getting really derailed okay so the movie comes out wait i thought you were about to tell me that colin farrell and amanda brown hooked up or got married No, that would be so cool. I'm not sure who Colin Farrell made out with that night. It was probably someone. I'm unclear on who. I do remember. I remember hearing he was fun. He was like the Lothario of the town. New to L.A. New to L.A. And L.A. loved him back. so when it came out i just want you to describe that feeling and how things changed for you and changed for reese and it was just like it was such a cultural moment and it changed the business a little bit i feel yes i so the movie was opening against a movie called the score with robert de niro and ed norton yes and i think there was like maybe two other movies that were pretty male dominated that were opening at the same weekend And oh I remember the lead up We were really sad because there were only two billboards for the movie in the entire city of Los Angeles. And we would say to Mark, like, Mark, why aren't there more billboards? We would love to go take our photos in front of the billboards. And he's like, girls, outdoor advertising is just narcissism for the business. You know, I mean, he didn't really talk like that. No, I get it. But he he said that, like, the money needs to be spent on TV spots, not on billboards. So that was his POV. He was correct. I will say there was a brilliant marketing ER department at MGM led by Eric Copps and Adam Keene. and Eric Copps got such a bee in his creative bonnet about promoting this film. He did things like he asked Regis Philburn, who was the host of the Regis and Kathy Lee show, which was a very big morning show at the time to dye his hair blonde and Regis Philburn dyed his hair blonde. To interview Witherspoon. Yes, he did. It was crazy. Eric Copps also did things like in the gay pride parade in West Hollywood, which has a massive, like, I don't know, 70, 80,000 people come to it. He had Jennifer Coolidge ride afloat with a gaggle of shirtless gay men throwing out t-shirts. I was there. I witnessed this. It was beyond brilliant. Wait, Kiwi, do you have a picture of that? I don't know if I do. If you have any of these things, I must see them. I must see them. I know. I don't know if I do. I don't think I do because I did. I was the girl with the disposable camera who was taking photos of everything. And I wouldn't know if I had that. And we didn't have that. Okay. So things like that were happening. Really creative marketing and PR things. Love it. So all this amazing marketing stuff from Adam Keene, who I absolutely love. I've worked with him once. He's a genius and still killing it. I also think he was very annoyed with us because we were doing a lot of things like, can we have more tickets to the premiere? You know, things like that. And then they rented out the Hammer Museum afterwards. Cool. And I've never seen that before. I think since then that's become a venue that's popular. But they rented all like three floors of the Hammer Museum. They had mani-pedi stations. They handed out blonde wigs when you walked in. And so I remember seeing this producer friend of mine, Ron Yerksa, who produced Little Miss Sunshine. I love Ron. He's wearing a blonde wig. Oh, my God. Stop. Yeah. Ron's like in the wig. He's like, I like this movie, Kiwi. It's a real, it's like a social satire. I'm like, I love it, Ron. And I love you in a blonde wig. Oh, my God. That's amazing. Yeah. It was a massive premiere. It just felt. And everyone, you know, all the sort of people in the business who show up to premieres, it's almost like their jobs, the agents and managers and attorneys, like they seemed really like this movie is good. This movie is actually good. Like it's really good. Like everyone's like, oh. Yes. So we had rented out for the opening night. These other movies were coming out. Our tracking was not very good. And it didn't seem like we were going to really pierce the culture in any way. But we still were, we had a group screening. Like we invited all of our friends, like 100 people came to a movie theater. We bought tickets for the whole movie. Then we rented out the beauty bar, which was on Cahuenga. Because we thought, oh, that'll be so fun. We'll have an after party with all of our friends. And like Coolidge came and Luketic and Reese came. And oh my God, Phantom Planet. Selma was dating Jason Schwartzman. Selma Blair was dating Jason Schwartzman. And Phantom Planet was my favorite band at the time. And they did a little acoustic set where Schwartzman played an empty water bottle as a drum. I have great photos of that. And then Adam Keene came to the party and he was like, this is really great. You guys are awesome. And we befriended each other. We went from being the annoying writers who asked for 30 tickets to the premiere to being fun, festive writers. Like festies. Yeah, yeah. He'll do anything for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my God. I love that. I love that. And this might be controversial, but I'll just say it because it is part of my memory. Harvey Weinstein and Miramax had given us a blind script deal during this time because it had gotten wind that the script had got around. And so they gave us a blind deal. And I remember Harvey showed up to our party around midnight with his executive, Michelle Rameau. And he came into the party. And by the way, the guy, the bouncer at the door was like, why do you have Harvey Weinstein on your guest list? And I was like, well, you know, I don't know. He might come. We invited him. And Harvey came and he said, just want to let you girls know your movie is open at number one. You're going to make $20 million this weekend. It was Friday at midnight. No way. And those were the days, as we know, loyal listeners, where like you had to get a fax and only certain people got that fax with the numbers. And so like Kiwi, you may not have even been home yet. And by the way, the numbers may have not come through. Like only people like Harvey knew that in advance. That is really cool. Yes. Which now, I mean, at the time it was exciting. Now through the lens of all we've learned, I feel repulsed, but to have been excited by that anecdote. Yes. No, but everyone has a Harvey anecdote. you can't erase history I mean it's just it's he's a part of it he's you can't yeah that's so that's how we found out that we were a hit it was such a hit it was a and it was a movie that stayed around I remember seeing it like two or three times during that summer like do you remember when you came out I yes July 13th 2001 now will there be another Legally Blonde I really hope so I really hope so. Me too. I mean, I hope that Reese wants to. I know Mark wants to. And that's all I can say is it would be so great. Let's will it into. Visualize. Let's will it. Let's manifest it. I love you so much. I literally could talk to you for hours. I know. It's the best. This has gone on very long and I apologize. I'm having the best time. It's like our meeting in Soho all those years ago. like all those years later. I adore you. I will talk to you later. Thank you for doing this. Thank you, Daniela. I may have to bring you back for another one, a different movie. Anytime. But this was so fun. Thank you for walking down memory lane. This movie just really like, as you know, it's like my top five. Thank you, Daniela. And thank you for this podcast. I love listening to it. It's so awesome. So I'm thrilled. Fancy making your day even brighter at Gala? With thousands of dazzling slots, slingo and live casino games, there's more to Gala than bingo. Sign up to grab 100 free spins when you deposit and spend £10 on slots. Gala, where a little joy goes a long way. 18 plus new customers claim within 7 days selected games. Spins valid for 7 days. Restrictions and T&Cs apply. Gamblerware.org We'll be right back. at February 2026. And most importantly, you must always have faith in yourself. Congratulations, class of 2004. We did it! So Bex, Kiwi Smith, just the best. I can't wait here for some like visual little moments from the pod to start to hit the internet because she has such a incredibly unique cool look she's one of these people that like when you're in a room you're just like this one has a lot to say and she's got like a whole vibe and she's so cool and whenever she enters a room like people are like who's that you know her energy is infectious yeah yeah I've never been that person. I've always wanted to be that person. I always have to like stand next to Reva for people to remember me because Reva's got this amazing hair or you, you know, I'm just like a sort of typical blonde redhead. But anyways, she's incredible. I loved her story so much. I want to know what really stood out to you. Well, there were a couple of moments, you know, I love this movie so much. I watch it multiple times a year. Whenever it's on TV, I just have to turn it on. Like it's such a classic and like really cemented that era of female empowerment movies, you know, like there, this wasn't a rom-com, but it felt like one, you know? Yeah. So anyway, this movie just has a very special place in my heart. So it was fun to hear Kiwi talk about so many different aspects of it. one of the things that I loved the most was hearing about how the bend and snap moment happened and how she totally like made that up on the fly and then and then had to present it to the choreographer like this is legitimately how I do this these steps in this move and like I would have been so embarrassed and she just owned it and oh my god for the studio heads like it was just I loved that that was so fun and it's such an iconic moment in the movie it is it's like the spontaneous creation of the bend and snap because there was like a moment missing in the second act that needed to be like a big musical moment right and it's like make it like a musical moment and then kiwi was just like well let's just make a musical moment and tie it in so thematically to the story i mean i just think those are like the great moments of writer's genius where it's like i could never have come up with that and it did become like a cultural phenomenon that i still reference today. And so I love that so much too. It was funny. I was at a dinner party last night. I was like, guys, get this. Britney Spears could have been Reese Witherspoon's part in Legally Blonde. And people were like blown away. Like the movie would not have resonated. Oh, it would have been so vastly different. But just the thinking about that on so many different levels right what would that have meant for britney like would that have changed the trajectory of what happened if all of a sudden she became like a massive movie star yeah because the like couple of attempts that she made didn't go well you know like what if this one had yeah or what if it hadn't because i actually can't imagine britney in this part now i love i love Britney. Love Britney. I, you know, I don't think that this was her, her role. Her calling is not, I don't think acting. I think her calling is truly music and dancing. I completely agree with that. So it's like this, this movie could have not become what it became. And I have to say that, you know, Reese Witherspoon, this was a real moment for her to like step up as a leader and a boss and one of the great actresses because she had been in, you know, she had been in sort of really interesting movies, but a lot of sort of like cruel intentions. And then she was in a movie called Fear with Mark Wahlberg. And she was like in a lot of like interesting, smaller films, some studio films, but the notion of like stepping up to the plate and taking on this sort of potential franchise on your own shoulders and being a leader and being a boss, because that's really what being number one on the call sheet is. Not everyone can do it. There's a lot of like actors and actresses that are given the shot and then they just they don't succeed. And we've talked a lot on the pod about these opportunities being given to actresses back in the day. You know, Reese is one Sandra Bullock. We talked about and while you were sleeping, we talked about Julia Roberts, you know, and they were given this opportunity and then they take it and they run with it and they like charm the entirety of the world. and then they also become bosses because of it because then they can start dictating like the type of movies that are getting made because they do become stars. And so I think like this movie is a Trojan horse, you know, like it does feel like a rom-com, but really it's about female empowerment, a woman like really becoming who she is and living up to her full potential. And so I love it so much. I love the tale of Reese Witherspoon coming into her own power, you know? Yeah. So that was amazing. I loved hearing that. And also Kiwi and Karen creating that opportunity through the screenplay, you know, really understanding the complexity and wanting to get people into the theaters, but also telling a tale of like female strength. It's great. It's amazing. I love it. I love it. I love it. Last thing, I have to give a shout out to my one of my best friends, Alyssa Doyle, who went to Harvard Law School and was like beautiful. And so there was like always a lot of like legally blonde talk around her because it came out around the time that she was there. And I always thought secretly it was like based on her, but it's not. In fact, it was based on our friend, Alyssa Vradenberg, who is Elizabeth Banks's manager. And we found out that, well, it's not totally based on her, but she was like instrumental in getting it to be at Harvard as opposed to Stanford, where the manuscript was originally set. So, so crazy. Such a small world, Bex. Shout out to all the brilliant women out there. Oh, all the brilliant, beautiful women working in the legal system. We love you guys. We honor you. Okay, guys, that was a great one. That was one for the books. Bex, you do the wrap up. Thank you, loyal listeners, for always continuing to listen to us. Please remember to like and subscribe. DM us with any questions, any producers or films you want us to feature on the podcast please be sure to check out our merch and wear some of these amazing sweatshirts around and remember to always stay gold stay gold guys