We’re all cordially invited to stream Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon’s new movie, You’re Cordially Invited, on Amazon Prime starting January 30. The premise is classic romcom: Reese is sister to one bride while Will is father to another, and of course the two weddings get double booked by the venue… will the friction between Reese and Will lead to love? Judging by the trailer and poster, it’s 50-50 whether they get together, or Will runs off with an alligator. I love a surprise! The movie looks fun, with some excellent supporting cast in Jack McBrayer and Celia Weston. Meanwhile, the leads have been deployed on promotional duties, which saw both Reese and Will appear on The Graham Norton Show last Friday, where Reese talked about the time she was made the foreman during jury duty service… because they’d all seen Legally Blonde and thought she went to law school. I’d say that decision making right there is a verdict of some kind on popular culture.
“Well listen, I did not want to do jury duty,” Witherspoon told host Graham Norton, 61. “But I remember it was after Legally Blonde. It was probably like seven years after Legally Blonde, I got called for jury duty and it was in Beverly Hills.”
She continued, “I thought, ‘Surely they’re not gonna pick me.’ They picked me for a long trial, y’all. It was probably two weeks. I was on the jury.”
“That’s not that long,” fellow guest and You’re Cordially Invited costar Will Ferrell chimed in, to which Witherspoon replied, “Okay, Ferrell.”
Ferrell, 57, continued, “I thought you were going to say a month.”
“No, listen, it was two solid weeks every day going in,” Witherspoon said. “And I was watching it and it was a dog bite case but it was very clear, I was very invested in this case.”
She continued, “We went every day and then we went to deliberation and so at the very end they say, ‘Okay, well somebody in this group has to be the foreman’ and they all unanimously are like, ‘Her.’”
“Me, me?” the Cruel Intentions star shrieked as she pointed to herself.
Witherspoon then recalled how the group explained they picked her because “you went to law school.”
“I was like, ‘Y’all this is really upsetting. I definitely did not go to law school, I didn’t finish college,’” she said. “I played a lawyer in a movie once but they fully made me the foreman and I started realizing people don’t know much about the law.”
Witherspoon continued, “If you get picked for jury duty, please do it,” adding that “some bad stuff goes down there.”
She went on to recall how some of the jury believed a defendant was guilty because they didn’t like “the way she looked.”
The Morning Show actress explained that the case involved a neighbor who sued a dog owner after the dog bit her hand.
However, “this other lady put her hand in a dog fight.”
“What did your mother always tell you, don’t put your hand in a dog fight,” Witherspoon said.
Here’s the truth, the whole truth: little girl Kismet was quietly devastated the day she learned that “jury member” wasn’t a profession you could pursue and make a career out of, like firefighter or influencer. No, instead we’re trusting important decisions to complete randos who, like Reese says, don’t want to be there and don’t know anything about the law!! It was such a blow, because I really am well-suited for it: I’m exceedingly reasonable and fair-minded (stop laughing). And though I haven’t gone to law school, I was the daughter of a law professor whose hobby was watching law-themed film & TV series, so that served as my education (which as we learn from Reese’s anecdote, is basically the same thing as a degree). To this day I have never been picked for jury duty, but I still want to do it. Let justice be done!
As for Reese’s story, I love the fact that she emphatically clarifies that not only did she not go to law school, she didn’t finish college. She easily could have stopped at, “No I don’t have a masters in this field.” But I like her so much more for going all in with, “Y’all’re crazy, I didn’t even finish college!” I also want to give credit to Will on a couple points: one, he’s totally right that two weeks is not a long trial, lol. And two, if you watch the full clip you see that Will follows up with the crucial question: “Was the dog innocent?” You know who really should’ve been foreman on that jury? Bruiser Woods!
Photos credit: Darla Khazei/INSTARimages, Janet Mayer/INSTARimages.com and via Instagram. Still from Legally Blonde via YouTube/HBO
Props to Reese for emphasizing that real life accomplishments and movie-accomplishments are NOT the same thing. I bet she was also a more than competent foreperson. Bruiser would be proud! lol
What a sad statement on (many, not all) Americans’ intelligence, though. I mean, JFC, they don’t understand that actors play roles?? People watched that movie and came away thinking that Reese Witherspoon actually graduated from Harvard Law School? Good grief.
She’s a funny storyteller. I was surprised too when she emphasized that she didn’t finish college. She’s clearly smart in a savvy and business minded way but recognizes she doesn’t have qualifications for that specific field, which I’m not sure other actors would have the self-awareness to realize, even among the ones that did finish college at Ivy League schools.
I got called for jury duty last year, the last week of November. I had made plans to dog sit my sister’s two special need dogs and got excused really easily but had to let them know alternative dates I could serve. I picked Christmas week. They assigned me that week. I went on Monday and one hour after arriving, the whole jury pool was excused. No jury trials that week. I knew judges, attorneys and court personnel weren’t going to trial that week.
I’ve served jury duty twice, my first go-around as the foreperson on a murder trial. I was the foreperson by default because I was juror #1 not because the other jurors selected me. I was the one to stand and read the verdicts (guilty on all counts). The second time was for a child sexual abuse case. If I ever get called again I hope it’s for something “mundane” like someone getting sued over a dog bite. Reese’s story is pretty funny, though.
I have a family member who was on a jury for a murder trial and they convicted the guy. About a year later, the guy’s brother moved in across the street from him (and his family). Thankfully, the brother didn’t know him because they keep the jury anonymous. But my relatives still sold their house and moved 6 months later for safety, just in case.
Agreed! Bruiser Woods would have been a trust-worthy foreman. Kismet, you can sign up online for mock trials.
To be fair, two weeks does sound long for a dog bite case. Maybe there were a lot of expert witnesses? Since it was Beverly Hills, maybe there was an animal psychologist or something?
Two weeks isn’t long for a trial, but two weeks for a dog bite trial seems excessive. I’ve been called for jury duty three times, served twice and the second was for attempted rape, kidnapping, etc. and it went four days total. (Guilty.)