In the ultimate fangirl move, during a press call, a plucky reporter gave Reese Witherspoon a copy of her college dissertation — a 15,000 word meditation on Witherspoon’s wildly popular film, Legally Blonde and its role in creating strong female characters.
Lucy Jayne Ford, a reporter for Bauer Media in London, was at a press junket to interview Witherspoon and her Wrinkle in Time co-stars Oprah Winfrey and Mindy Kaling, but couldn’t resist the opportunity to show her admiration for Witherspoon.
“I want to start by saying I’m obviously a gigantic fan of all of you; Reese, I actually wrote 15,000 words on you once,” Ford said before handing Reese a copy of her lengthy dissertation and explaining that she had watched the film 800 times to write it.
“You can read it, you can burn it, you can clean your windows with it, but I feel like this was full circle for me that I wrote that four years ago.”
While Ford conducted her interview after giving Witherspoon the dissertation, Witherspoon made sure to ask her one burning question that Elle Woods most definitely would have approved of before their time ended.
“I have just one question,” Witherspoon said. “Is it scented?”
“I actually put perfume on it before this,” Ford confided.
See Witherspoon receive the dissertation below.
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Write to Cady Lang at cady.lang@timemagazine.com