Judge Judy Sheindlin turned down the chance to make a cameo in one of the most iconic movies of all time.
“My one regret, actually … when [Reese Witherspoon] was doing Legally Blonde, they reached out through someone and said, ‘We’d like you to be the judge,’” Sheindlin, 81, revealed during an interview with E! News on Wednesday, January 24. “It’s the biggest mistake I ever made in my career, and I’ve told this to Reese, not playing that part in that movie. So, sometimes you have to take the adventure and run with it.”
Sheindlin is referring to the role of Judge Marina R. Bickford, who was ultimately played by actress Francesca P. Roberts in the 2001 film. The judge presided over the third act murder trial, which Witherspoon’s Elle Woods won through her knowledge of perm hair care.
On Wednesday, Sheindlin made it clear that she has nothing but kind words about Witherspoon, 47. “I think Reese is a fabulous woman,” she shared.
Sheindlin is such a big fan of the Oscar winner that she named her as the actress she wants to portray her in a biopic. “We’re friends, and she gets me, and I know she does,” the TV personality previously told E! News back in November 2022. “And I think she’s a great actress, and I think she could—if they did, which I would not like—I think that she could carry that off.”
Witherspoon, for her part, is down for the challenge “I don’t even have to think about it,” she told the outlet. “Yes, I’m in. Judy, call me.”
The Morning Show actress went on to gush about her “love” for Sheindlin, stating, “I mean, she’s my girlfriend. I’m obsessed with her. I love her book that’s called Beauty Fades, Dumb Is Forever. Classic book. She just gives out great information and knowledge and she’s just one of those truly wise people that you want around, you know?”
Sheindlin may get a chance to share the screen with Witherspoon in the future as a third Legally Blonde film is currently in the works — though it’s been a minute since there has been an update on the script. Deadline confirmed in May 2020 that the movie had been given the greenlight and that Witherspoon would reprise her role as Elle Woods. Witherspoon’s A Wrinkle in Time costar Mindy Kaling is set to cowrite the project with Dan Goor.
“I love this project. I am so excited about it. We are working on it,” Kaling, 44, told Entertainment Tonight in April 2022. “It is going, you know, a little more slowly than we like but [it’s] just because we really want it to be good.”
Later that year, Witherspoon told USA Today that she hopes Legally Blonde 3 “come[s] together in the right way,” adding, “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,” she explained in July 2022. “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.”
