The pop-culture icon Elle Woods, the hyper-feminine and fiercely smart protagonist of the Legally Blonde movies, is getting a high school origin story in the new Prime Video series Elle, which premieres July 1. The Vancouver-shot show follows a teenage Elle (Lexi Minetree) as she is uprooted from Bel-Air and moves to Seattle with her family.
Setting and Premise
Set in 1995, the series begins with Elle celebrating her sweet 16 with a pink-themed party at her family's Bel-Air mansion. Her parents, Eva (June Diane Raphael) and Wyatt (Tom Everett Scott), then reveal that due to a job issue, the family must relocate to Seattle. Elle is devastated by the news.
Showrunner Laura Kittrell explained the contrast: “It’s Seattle grunge. It’s the opposite of everything that she understands. We always talked about this motif of her being the lone pink figure in a sea of grey and flannel.”
Fish Out of Water
At her new high school—filmed at North Vancouver’s St. Thomas Aquinas Regional Secondary School—Elle’s sunny California attitude and fashion choices make her a target. Senior mean girl Kimberley (Chandler Kinney) mocks Elle’s customized Nirvana T-shirt, saying, “People are saying that you wearing that shirt is the second worst thing that has ever happened to Nirvana,” referencing Kurt Cobain’s death the previous year.
Creative Team and Casting
Showrunners Laura Kittrell and Caroline Dries, both teens in the 1990s, aimed to explore Elle’s first fish-out-of-water moments, crushes, and friendship breakups in an analog world. “What was her first fish-out-of-water moment? What was her first crush? What was her first friendship breakup? For us, just the idea of high school allowed us to explore that,” said Kittrell. She added, “I went to high school in the ’90s. I was the same age as Elle, and I just remember how scary it was to ask somebody to a dance in person or on the phone.”
Lexi Minetree, a USC theatre school graduate with credits including Law & Order: SVU, landed the role after an open casting call that drew thousands of audition tapes. Her tape stood out because she mimicked Elle’s “why I belong at Harvard” application video from the film during the slate portion.
Production and Release
The first season consists of eight episodes, all dropping on July 1. Season 2 has already wrapped shooting in Vancouver. The series is described as more like a young-adult novel than a straightforward sitcom, appealing to both teens and adults.
