Yahoo Lifestyle Reese Witherspoon Was on Jury Duty After ‘Legally Blonde’ and Got Shocked When Jurors Thought She Was a Real Lawyer: ‘This Is Really Upsetting’
Reese Witherspoon recently revealed on “The Graham Norton Show” (via Entertainment Weekly) that she got the shock of a lifetime when she was called for jury duty years after the release of 2001’s “Legally Blonde.” But it had nothing to do with the case itself. The Oscar winner found out that her fellow jurors actually thought she was a real lawyer due to her iconic portrayal of Elle Woods.
“Listen, I did not want to do jury duty,” Witherspoon said.. “But I remember it was probably seven years after ‘Legally Blonde,’ I got called for jury duty and it was in Beverly Hills. I thought, ‘Surely they’re not gonna pick me.’ They picked me for a long trial, y’all. It was probably two weeks.”
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“It was two solid weeks every day going in,” Witherspoon continued,. “And then we went to deliberation and so at the very end they say, ‘Okay, well somebody in this group has to be the foreman.’ And they all unanimously are like, ‘Her.'”
The jurors were pointing to Witherspoon, of course. On a jury, the foreman is tasked with keeping the jurors focused and announces the verdict to the court after a decision is reached. Witherspoon was confused why her fellow jurors wanted her to be their foreman, so she asked to hear about their reasoning.
“They were like, ‘You went to law school,” Witherspoon said. “I was like, ‘Y’all this is really upsetting. I definitely did not go to law school, I didn’t finish college.’ I played a lawyer in a movie once but they fully made me the foreman and I started realizing… people don’t know much about the law.”
Witherspoon played Elle Woods in two films, 2001’s “Legally Blonde” and 2003’s “Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde.” She is currently spearheading a revival of the franchise courtesy of an Elle Woods prequel series at Amazon Prime Video.
Currently titled “Elle,” the logline for the series states that it “follows Elle Woods in high school as we learn about the life experiences that shaped her into the iconic young woman we came to know and love in the first ‘Legally Blonde’ film.” The series hails from creator Laura Kittrell, who will also serve as showrunner and executive producer. Witherspoon executive produces along with Lauren Neustadter via Hello Sunshine.
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