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June Diane Raphael is proud that her new show Elle, a prequel to Reese Witherspoon’s 2001 movie Legally Blonde, proves Hollywood can build successful franchises about women. And the backlash the show has received from fans over changes from the original film has only reinforced those feelings.
“There’s something I like about the discourse and reaction, because anybody talking about it is a good thing,” Raphael told Obsessed: The Podcast. “And sometimes it feels like franchises or world-building has been reserved for very male-centered stories like Spider-Man.”
Ultimately, Raphael likes that the show is prompting conversations the same way male movie fans ask, “What did they do to my Spider-Man? What they do to my Indiana Jones? What they do to my Avengers?”
Raphael plays Eva, Elle Woods’ image-obsessed mother, who struggles alongside her daughter to fit in after the family moves from Beverly Hills to the Pacific Northwest. Raphael understands fans’ discomfort with the location change from the original, but she believes it makes room for Elle to grow in ways audiences didn’t already see in the movie.
“You know, I think that there’s so much people want from a beloved world and character, and they’re very protective of it,” she said. “And so, yeah, I have seen that reaction, and I understand it, but if she learned that lesson, well then, why would she learn it again in the movies?”
Put more simply, she added, “Just enjoy the show.”
Raphael pointed to how Lexi Minetree, who plays the title role, phrased how the changes allowed new character development for Elle.
“Lexi said something really smart, which was, ‘If we only had to learn a lesson once in our lives, like, that would be great, and we’d all be better off for it,’” Raphael said. “If only we elected Donald Trump one time and could have learned from that.”
While playing Eva, Raphael had to access her character’s specific sexuality as a mother and a middle-aged woman. And she credited Jane Fonda, whom she worked with on Netflix’s Grace and Frankie, for teaching her a lot about embodying sensuality and sexuality on screen.
“I don’t think there’s anyone sexier,” she said. “Jane somehow played, like, smart, vulnerable, but also sexual and desiring and wanting.”
The push and pull of Eva and Elle’s mother/daughter relationship informed Raphael’s approach to her role. She’s glad the story encompassed the complicated parts of mothering a teenager. As a performer, she wanted to balance comedy with the realities of a flawed character.
“I love that I get to do so much comedy and also portray this mom who really loves her daughter and also is wrong sometimes and allowed to be human and very much awake for the experience of parenting and changing alongside her,” Raphael said. “I mean, that’s something that Lexi and I have actually talked about. Sometimes the parents in the young adult shows sort of are in and out. You don’t really get to see just how deeply we grieve over our children getting older and changing.”
Raphael was also grateful Elle gave her the opportunity to act opposite the late James Van Der Beek, who died in February of this year. In the show, he plays Seattle mayoral candidate Dean Wilson, whose campaign takes off after he hires Eva as an image consultant.
“I really loved James,” Raphael said. “I feel so honored to have spent that time with him. I’m really proud of the work we did together on the show. I watch it, and I’m like, he’s so easy to have chemistry with. He’s so winning. I’ve talked to Kimberly, his wife, and you know, we just talked about just how goddamn charming he is.”
After landing the role, Raphael deliberately didn’t rewatch Legally Blonde. She wanted to come into the character on her own, without preconceived ideas from the movie.
This isn’t to say she hasn’t seen Legally Blonde, of course.
“I saw it in the theater when it came out, but I’ve seen it eight million times,” she said. “It’s like, you go to Dry Bar, it’s gonna be on. You can trust and believe that.”
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