Producer
Stokely Chaffin was the one who developed the movie's concept and brought it to screenwriter
C. Jay Cox to write. Chaffin, now the Senior Vice President of Productions at New Line Cinema, was raised in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and like
Reese Witherspoon's character, she changed her name after she left the South (during her childhood, her friends and family called her by her first name, Caroline; Stokley is her middle name). Chaffin insisted that Cox visit Alabama before writing the screenplay.
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