Actress Reese Witherspoon Reveals the Highlight of Her Career

The ‘Legally Blonde’ star and mom of three reflected on her some of her best industry moments.

Reese Witherspoon / Alan Poizner-USA TODAY Sports

Reese Witherspoon has played some pretty iconic characters. From lead roles in drama series like Big Little Lies and The Morning Show to sassy, supporting side characters like Jill Green in Friends, the 48-year-old is a staple in the industry and she’s certainly not leaving anytime soon.

Her most famous role, however, is without a doubt Elle Woods from Legally Blonde. And, Witherspoon agrees, it’s a character that really defined her and was the “highlight” of her career.

In a recent interview shared on People’s TikTok account, the mom of three reflected on the impact playing the fashion fanatic-turned Harvard Law School student had on her personally, and on the rest of the world.

“She was such a funny character, she was such an underdog. [I tried to portray] those pieces of her that were really vulnerable—that feeling that people underestimate you and think that you can’t do things which is a feeling that so many people feel in this world. I had no idea when we were making it that it was going to touch so many people’s hearts,” she said. “I have a lot of people come up to me and tell me that they went to law school because of Legally Blonde. You don’t realize when you’re making a movie, the impact that it’s going to have on the world. I’ll go places like Japan or Russia or Poland, I’ve been all over the world and I’ve had women come up to me and say ‘you made me want to be lawyer’ or ‘you made me want to reach for a higher degree’ or ‘you made me believe in myself.’ I can’t tell you how fulfilling that is...particularly when I hear it from little girls, or [people] write their college essays about ‘I wanna be like Elle Woods.’ [She’ll always be] a big part of my life.”