Entertainment Awards Shows and Events Premieres Luke Wilson Says Reese Witherspoon Inspired Him to Bring His A-Game to Legally Blonde (Exclusive) “I thought, ‘It's a romantic comedy, it's not particularly to my taste, but it'll be fun to work with Reese,’” Luke Wilson tells PEOPLE By Jack Smart Jack Smart Jack Smart is the Movies Staff Writer at PEOPLE. With 10 years of experience as an entertainment journalist, he previously worked at The A.V. Club and Backstage. People Editorial Guidelines Published on June 16, 2024 08:30AM EDT Legally Blonde. Photo: Tracy Bennett/Mgm/Kobal/Shutterstock Despite starring in his fair share of romantic comedies, Luke Wilson doesn’t consider the genre his thing. Signing onto 2001’s Reese Witherspoon classic Legally Blonde, he tells PEOPLE exclusively, the actor remembers it as “one of those things where I thought, ‘It's a romantic comedy, it's not particularly to my taste, but it'll be fun to work with Reese. She seems great.’ ” Wilson, 52, calls himself “a real fan of Reese from Election,” her 1999 satire about a type-A high schooler running for class president. “She was great in that, just kind of a real force. It's harder than it looks, I think, to act like a teen and be realistic.” Reese Witherspoon Reflects on Election's 25th Anniversary: I 'Never Dropped That Character' (Exclusive) Then along came Elle Woods. Witherspoon, now 48, led director Robert Luketic and writers Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith's Legally Blonde as a SoCal sorority girl-turned-Harvard Law School star who, by the end of the story, stormed into courtrooms in all-pink ensembles. “The first day seeing her in wardrobe, and how she was talking and carrying herself, I just thought, ‘Okay, now I've got to concentrate. She is really doing something and working hard and making a real character out of this,’ ” recalls Wilson, who played Emmett Richmond, a lawyer and Elle’s eventual love interest. “I think people take it for granted,” he says of Witherspoon’s portrayal. On paper, the character could have been “a Saturday Night Live skit.” Luke Wilson at Legally Blonde 2 premiere. Gordon M. Grant / Alamy Stock Photo But the actress had so mastered Elle’s “over-the-top” mannerisms and yet given her such depth, she reminded the Dallas native “of people I'd come across in Texas: just very forthright, they know what they want, very direct and ambitious, but also sweet and kind. And having this veneer of clothes and hair and nails and things like that.” Early on in filming, Wilson recalls thinking, “She's doing something really, really cool and I better buckle down and do a good job to play the straight man alongside her, to serve her character.” The Wilson Brothers: All About Owen, Luke and Andrew Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Wilson and Witherspoon reprised their roles in 2003’s Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde — in which their characters tied the knot — and a third Legally Blonde film has since reportedly been in the works with Mindy Kaling and Dan Goor as its screenwriters. Asked for any intel, Wilson says he hasn’t “heard anything about” another sequel. “We had a Zoom meeting a year or two ago,” he says, adding on second thought, “It wasn't a meeting about the movie… I don't know what it was, but it was great to see [Witherspoon] and the other actors.” Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde. MGM/courtesy Everett Reese Witherspoon Says 'There Is No 'Legally Blonde 3' Without Jennifer Coolidge' For Wilson, Legally Blonde will always have a special place in his heart. “I've met women who watched it when they were kids who now have kids who are seeing it, and that's very funny to me,” he says. Wilson’s next project is decidedly not a romcom: he plays a frontiersman in writer-director-star Kevin Costner’s Western epic Horizon. The saga’s Chapter 1 is in theaters June 28, with Chapter 2 to follow Aug 16.