Yahoo News Jennifer Coolidge wants Legally Blonde 3 real bad so drag queens stop terrorizing her with hot dogs
Jennifer Coolidge wants to do a patriotic service to the drag queens serving our community: Provide them with fresh material to recreate from Legally Blonde 3.
The White Lotus actress revealed in a recent interview that she's "very excited" about potentially slipping back into Paulette Bonafonté's bedazzled denim vest for the long-awaited, previously announced, ever-delayed Legally Blonde threequel to the 2001 hit — but mostly because it will finally stop drag performers from harassing her with hot dogs.
"I get thousands and thousands of texts and videos of people doing the Fourth of July [scene], you know, everybody. Men, women, these TikTokers, and then lots of drag queens send me these funny videos and do these weird things with the vegan hot dogs," she said on The Jess Cagle Show, referencing Paulette's iconic quote about Reese Witherspoon's character, Elle Woods, reminding her of the American holiday (and, subsequently, craving a hot dog "real bad").
"I feel like if we did a Legally Blonde 3, I would have something else. It could be maybe some other holiday we could take advantage of," Coolidge continued. "I really felt like this year, I was like, okay, alright. I've really done this Fourth of July thing and I'm gonna have to insist to Reese that we make it this year because I'm not gonna make it. I'm not gonna, I can't do it. I can't do it next year. I can't. You know what I mean? I need new material."
Still, she praised drag queens for being "funnier than I am," adding that "they do me better than I can do myself, and I love them for it," though she admitted that "their shtick is getting limited when they do it. We should give them a huge, a new thing that no one's even thought of."
Coolidge's image is a staple among the queer community. RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under season 1 finalist Scarlet Adams even performed on the show's Snatch Game celebrity impersonation challenge as Coolidge — and, yes, RuPaul cued up a joke about hot dogs as part of the scene.
Everett Collection; World of Wonder Jennifer Coolidge wants 'Legally Blonde 3' so drag queens have new material to reference instead of her Fourth of July hot dog moment
In an interview with USA Today, Witherspoon gave an update on the planned film, which was first confirmed in 2018 with Mindy Kaling and Dan Goor brought on as screenwriters in 2020.
"I'm still hoping that Legally Blonde 3 is gonna come together in the right way," she said of continuing the film series that launched her to superstardom as the pink-obsessed Harvard Law student. "It's just like Top Gun: They waited a long time to make another version of that movie, and I loved the nostalgia piece they incorporated in it. So definitely that gave us a lot of inspiration about what we would want to do with Elle Woods and make sure that we had all those same touchstones that mattered to people (back) then. I feel like these characters are my friends, so I safeguard them. I would never make the subpar, mediocre version of their story."
In March, Kaling explained that the delay was partially due to finessing the script.
"We want to make sure that Elle Woods is not paying penance for existing in the year 2022," she told Time. "As a fan, I didn't want to watch her be canceled or become a Karen. So the character is just fun. That's what's been interesting and challenging — and why it's taking us such a long time to write."
Watch Coolidge's new interview above.
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