Elle Woods is surrounded by all manner of women: her ultimate sorority girlfriends Margot and Serena, her manicurist/therapist Paulette, steel-fisted Professor Stromwell, her frothing-at-the-mouth feminist classmate Enid, and her first defendant, a famed California fitness guru on trial for murdering her husband. The filmmakers assembled an exciting cast of diverse actresses to bring this array of personalities to light, from the up-and-coming to the already- there.
In the hostile Harvard environment, Elle finds solace in the one place where she is truly understood: at the Beauty Oasis, where Paulette, the maladroit manicurist, is always ready with an open ear. Paulette is played by actress and comedienne Jennifer Coolidge, who sees Elle as "a modern day Shane who comes into this town and changes everyone's life in unexpected ways."
"Elle really helps Paulette," Coolidge continues. "She helps her to get her self-esteem and power back. Other people may look down on Elle, but Paulette sees her as this smart, amazing person who is incredibly kind." Paulette herself may not be the most together gal in the world, and her life is often an amusing mess, but she's got a heart of gold. Marc Platt says, "Jennifer Coolidge is able to be hilarious and touching at the same time. She gives you someone to really root for."
Rising stars Jessica Cauffiel and Alanna Ubach play Elle's perky sorority sisters. Both actresses became fascinated with the sorority lifestyle, hanging out incognito at various college campus hot-spots. "Sorority girls are very educated and very eloquent, but they still drop in a 'totally' every now and then," observes Ubach. But no matter how boisterously bubbly and hilariously trivial their characters might sometimes seem, something else attracted the young actresses. "This is a comedy about the idea that a person's worth can't be judged one way or the other by what they look like, how they dress, what their vocabulary is, whatever, and that's really interesting," says Cauffiel. "It's about how a person should be judged by their kindness, humanity and spirit."
In sharp contrast to Margot and Serena is Enid, Elle's fiercely feminist Harvard classmate, played by Meredith Scott Lynn. "Enid's intense," Scott Lynn admits. "And when she first meets Elle she thinks she's a woman who represents everything she despises, who flaunts her femininity with fabulous clothes and make-up and whatever. But what's so interesting about Enid is that, for her all feminist rhetoric, she's pretty darn catty!"
A role model for Elle is her one female teacher, Professor Stromwell, played by Holland Taylor in a funny female take on John Houseman's imperious professor in the law school classic The Paper Chase. The role gave Taylor a chance to do a light-hearted take on lawyering, a switch from her role as a serious judge on the hit dramatic television series The Practice.
"Professor Stromwell takes no prisoners," Taylor explains. "She's every bit as tough as the John Houseman character, but since this is a comedy, she even takes it a step further. It's been just a blast to play."
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