Alicia Silverstone recalls advocating for Brittany Murphy's Clueless casting: 'She was so good'

Right up there with the way Cher Horowitz’s red party dress jives with her feathered jacket and (soon-to-be-ruined) satin shoes, Alicia Silverstone and Brittany Murphy’s onscreen friendship in Clueless was one of the best cinematic pairings of the 1990s. Now, the former is remembering her late costar in a new interview for 20/20‘s upcoming May 23 special Lights, Camera, Summer! — a clip from which EW is exclusively revealing above.

“I remember the audition day. She’s the main person I remember from the auditions because her audition was so amazing,” Silverstone recalls of Murphy, who played the fashionably challenged high school transfer Tai Frasier — the stylish Cher’s (Silverstone) pet makeover project — in the teen comedy. “I don’t think I had a voice in that room, but I was like, ‘We’re going with her, right? We’re going with her!’ And obviously everybody felt, clearly, the same way. But, I was just hoping. She was so good.”

While Silverstone’s character performs a monumental overhaul of Tai’s image in the Amy Heckerling-directed hit, the actress admits her personal wardrobe wasn’t up to par with her character’s.

“Mona May and Amy Heckerling are both brilliant geniuses, and they worked on the costumes together… and I remember being so exhausted with the costume fittings because I didn’t have any fashion sense at all at that age,” Silverstone says in EW’s second exclusive clip (below). “It took [until] recently that I became interested in clothes. I think, as you get older, you’re like, oh, yes I will accept looking nice. That’s a nice idea.”

But for Silverstone, who was only 18 during production on Clueless, Horowitz’s massive collection of designer clothes proved to be a daunting task to sift through.

“At the time [in] jeans a green T-shirt, I was good all week long,” she admits. “So when I had to try 63 things on [for the movie], I was just like, this is painful!”