Left to right, Tom Everett Scott, Lexi Minetree and June Diane Raphael star in “Elle.” Photo courtesy of Prime Video
An American Werewolf in Paris, 13 Reasons Why and The Summer I Turned Pretty actor Tom Everett Scott says his character Wyatt Woods has a close relationship with his titular daughter in Elle — even if he doesn’t always understand her.
The Legally Blonde prequel is now streaming on Prime Video. It follows bubbly Bel-Air native Elle Woods (Lexi Minetree) to her new high school in grungy 1990s Seattle.
“He is a fun, kind of out-of-touch dad. He’s a plastic surgeon. He is a sweetheart,” Scott, 55, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
“He’s a little superficial in the beginning,” Scott added. “We’ll get into it more as the series goes on. But it was just really fun to play and they wrote a lot of great stuff. There’s a lot of great comedy. There’s a lot of great moments between the two parents and playing with Lexi and the fun that we got to have, on and off set, has just been such a joy.”
Big Mouth and Based on a True Story actress June Diane Raphael, 46, plays Elle’s mom and Wyatt’s wife, Eva.
“Our characters really love her so much and give her so much support and I think are a big reason why she goes on to be the confident, amazing, iconic character we see in the Legally Blonde movie,” Raphael said.
“You get to see where Elle Woods came from and where her sense of style and obsession with pink and just fashion and makeup and hair, where all that came from, and I think Eva’s a big part of that. So, it’s cool to make those connections,” she added.
“Eva gets to grow with her daughter and, so, it’s a beautiful, loving relationship, ultimately. Then, at times, there’s growing pains and you get to see both of them in a little bit of a push-pull with each other. But, ultimately, there’s a lot of love underneath that.”
The move from Bel-Air to Seattle for Wyatt’s career means a bit of culture shock for the whole family.
“He’s the one who’s made the big mistake. He’s the reason why they’ve had to move. I think he’s just kind of hoping that it all works out,” Scott laughed about Wyatt.
“And [hoping] that they stay with him?” Raphael asked, to which Scott agreed.
“The stakes are high for Wyatt and he’s trying to pretend like everything is going to be just fine and by keeping a positive attitude that will help with the situation,” Scott added.
A running joke in the series is that Wyatt is a skilled surgeon that has moved to a city where people don’t care as much about their outward appearances as the population of Bel-Air did.
“Nobody wants it. They’re not into it,” Scott said of his gifts for fixing what people perceive as their cosmetic flaws.
“They like their noses, as [Wyatt] says,” Raphael teased.
The actress also noted that Eva is like a lot of moms from 1995 — more focused on her family than on herself.
“So much of herself was invested in them that she finds herself in Seattle really wanting more and wanting to figure out, ‘Wait, Elle is getting older and doesn’t necessarily need that level of care-taking anymore and is more independent, although there are times where she’s still clearly just a child,'” Raphael said.
“But Eva is at a moment in her life where she’s looking up and wondering: ‘Is this it? Or is there anything more that I have to give?’ I think a lot of women are going to be able to relate to that.”
