Reese Witherspoon is paying tribute to a movie that “completely changed” her life.
On Saturday, the Big Little Lies star took to Instagram to share a series of clips from her 2002 romantic comedy Sweet Home Alabama. In the film, Witherspoon plays Melanie, a New York City fashion designer who returns to her small hometown in the South in order to get a divorce from his first husband, played by Josh Lucas.
The film also stars Melanie Lynskey as her former best friend and Patrick Dempsey as the current fiance waiting for her back in Manhattan. Dakota Fanning, in one of her earliest roles, portrays a young version of Witherspoon’s character.
“20 years ago Sweet Home Alabama came out and completely changed my life. Incredible memories of shooting this movie with these amazing actors —Josh, Patrick, Dakota, Melanie, Jean, Ethan, Mary Kay, Fred, and Candace, of course,” Witherspoon wrote in the caption of her post. “So many great scenes and my favorite line… ‘So I can kiss you anytime I want.’ Do you remember seeing it for the first time?”
Witherspoon’s followers loved the throwback — including Dakota Fanning’s sister, The Great star Elle Fanning, who wrote “THE BEST.” Rachel Zoe concurred, “BEST MOVIE EVER.”
The Hello Sunshine producer often honors her previous work on social media. Last year, she celebrated the 20th anniversary of Legally Blonde — in which she played sorority president-turned-Harvard law student Elle Woods — with a special message about how important the film remains to her.
“Every meme, graduation cap, musical number, halloween costume and bend & snap has brought me so much JOY over these past two decades!” she gushed. “I wonder… what will Elle do next?”
Fans will learn what Elle Woods is up to next: Witherspoon is set to reprise her role in Legally Blonde 3, with a script penned by Mindy Kaling. Right now, it’s unclear exactly when the movie will hit theaters.
“I’m still hoping that Legally Blonde 3 is gonna come together in the right way,” the Walk the Line actress told USA Today last year. “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.”
