The role of sorority girl-turned-Harvard Law student Elle Woods, which made Reese Witherspoon a household name, was almost given to a different actress. Christina Applegate was shown the script before Witherspoon, but — as she'd just finished her run on Married With Children, where she played a ditzy blonde — she was afraid of being typecast. "I got scared of kind of repeating myself," Applegate explained to Entertainment Tonight in July 2015. "What a stupid move that was, right?"
Producers at MGM weren't convinced Witherspoon was a good fit for Legally Blonde after seeing her in 1999's Election, where she played overeager student Tracy Flick. "My manager finally called and said, 'You've got to go meet with the studio head because he will not approve you. He thinks you really are your character from Election and that you're repellent,'" Witherspoon told The Hollywood Reporter in December 2019. Obviously she was able to change his mind.