Reese Witherspoon Passes “Pink Torch” To ‘Elle’ Star Lexi Minetree

It was a perfect day for Legally Blonde fans as the cast of the beloved 2001 comedy reunited for the 25th anniversary while passing the franchise down to the next generation.

On Saturday at Hall Des Lumieres in New York City, Reese Witherspoon got teary-eyed as she praised Lexi Minetree‘s “beautiful heart” while recalling her audition for Elle Woods in Prime Video‘s prequel series Elle, premiering July 1 on the streamer.

“I have to tell you, When I saw Lexi Minetree in her video, it stopped me, it took my breath away. She understood—I’m gonna cry again—she’s just such an incredible person,” she said during a panel moderated by Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers. “She had gone into her backyard with her mom and recreated the whole Harvard admissions video. She hadn’t just filmed a tape, she was like, ‘I don’t even know if I’m going to get this part, but I’m going to put that extra effort into this.’ She had the sparkly bikinis. She did the little walk and the guy touched her butt, and she’s like, ‘I object!’ And there was something divine about it.

“And I said, ‘OK, well she’s obviously incredible, but I wanna talk to her.’ So we did a Zoom, and she didn’t know she basically already had the job. But I was like, ‘I want you to understand the responsibility of what this means to people. Little girls are gonna come up to you and it’s like a massive responsibility.’”

Witherspoon added, “So, I wanna say on top of being this incredibly disciplined, talented young woman, she has such a beautiful heart. And she told me things about her life and her family and things that just showed me her character, and I just could not be more proud to pass the baton or the pink torch to Lexi Minetree as the new Elle Woods. I love you so much. You have no idea. I’m just so proud of you.”

At Elle World, the Oscar winner reunited with co-stars Jennifer Coolidge, Ali Larter, Selma Blair, Victor Garber and Matthew Davis, as well as musicians Hoku and Vanessa Carlton, whose songs “Perfect Day” and “A Thousand Miles” are featured on the original movie’s soundtrack.

The event also featured Minetree and her co-stars from the Prime Video series, including Zac Looker, Jacob Moskovitz, Chandler Kinney, Gabrielle Policano, Tom Everett Scott and June Diane Raphael, plus executive producer Lauren Neustadter.