Yahoo Finance Reese Witherspoon Says 'There Is No Legally Blonde 3 Without Jennifer Coolidge'
Tracy Bennett/Mgm/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Jennifer Coolidge, Reese Witherspoon
Reese Witherspoon is just as excited about Jennifer Coolidge getting her accolades as any other fan — and now she's teasing that the third Legally Blonde movie wouldn't be possible without her involvement.
In a new interview with Entertainment Tonight, Witherspoon, 46, made her message clear: "There is no Legally Blonde 3 without Jennifer Coolidge."
"I'm beyond myself about Jennifer Coolidge," Witherspoon said during the premiere of her new film Your Place or Mine. "She deserves every one of those flowers she is receiving right now."
Frazer Harrison/Getty
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"And she's just one of those people who is so naturally gifted and funny and that you can just tell people love her. She gets up there and everybody's like, 'I love her,' but she's just done a lot of good work in our business for so long, that it's really nice to see her getting this incredible moment," she continued.
Coolidge's involvement in the long-awaited third Legally Blonde film has been teased for a few years now. The film was first confirmed back in 2018, and Mindy Kaling later confirmed she was co-writing the feature in 2020 alongside Dan Goor.
Coolidge, 61, previously said at the 2021 Emmys that she would ask Kaling "what's happening with the Legally Blonde script" if she ran into her, and even joked at another event that she was worried about being "replaced" in the sequel.
Shortly after, she said in a joint interview with Witherspoon for Backstage that she was "dying to know" more about the third film. "Reese is the keeper of the keys. ... I know so little of what's happening with that, so I can't wait to hear what Reese has to say today."
During the conversation, Witherspoon gestured to her costar and said the movie will include "a lot of me and this lady."
"The movie is such a feminist movie too, at the time, about really that your life doesn't have to be defined by your romantic relationships; it can be defined by your girlfriends, by your sense of self-worth, by your job, your education, your accomplishments," she said. "So it's interesting to visit characters 20 years later," she added. "Mindy Kaling's writing it. They're in the process of it."
Jennifer Coolidge at the Critics Choice Awards
RELATED: Selma Blair 'Would've Loved' Her Legally Blonde Character to End Up with Reese Witherspoon's Elle
Witherspoon first played Harvard Law student Elle Woods in 2001's Legally Blonde, which was followed up with Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde in 2003.
Other costars have announced that they'd be down to reprise their roles, even outside of Coolidge, who played Paulette in both films. When asked in 2021 if he'd want to reprise his role as Emmett Richmond in the next installment, Luke Wilson told PEOPLE, "Yeah. I'm always up to work with Reese again."
"We'll just have to see what happens," he continued.
The actor also shared at the time that he wasn't opposed to revisiting the original Legally Blonde when it comes on TV. "I'll watch it when I see it on cable, and it's on cable a lot," Wilson said. "But just because Reese is always so funny in the movie to me. So I always watch a few things just because I like her portrayal of Elle Woods so much."
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Selma Blair also noted on the Shut Up Evan podcast last year that she hopes "to at least make a cameo" in the movie as Vivian Kensington.
"I'm hoping, hoping that that legacy can continue, because talk about the good things in life," Blair said. "That movie is one of the good things in life. It's a highlight. I really feel like, 'Yeah, my obit's gonna look okay.' "
