Reese Witherspoon: Not just legally blonde

Actor Reese Witherspoon talks about her upcoming film ‘Wild’ and how frail roles just won’t cut it for her

Reese Witherspoon could perhaps still claim the title of America’s sweetheart, but Hollywood’s over achiever may be a more apt name for the 38-year-old actor. Sitting amid the wilderness above Beverly Hills, Witherspoon has found “the most true and honest expression of who [she] really is” in her new film Wild, opening this week in US theatres, reported Reuters.

Stripped down and raw, critics are calling it her strongest role in years, and it is largely of her own making. She bought the film rights to the best-selling memoir by Cheryl Strayed, a grieving, strong-willed young woman who hikes over 1,000 miles in a solo quest to heal.

It was the kind of role, Witherspoon said, which was scarce when she founded her production company three years ago. She won the Oscar for ‘Best Actress’ in 2006 for her role as June Carter in Walk the Line, but had not matched that success since. “You know, it wasn’t about the studios not giving me what I wanted,” she said in an interview. “You can’t expect people to develop projects that quintessentially capture what you want to say in film. If you want something done right, you do it yourself,” she added.

After Wild and their recent box office hit Gone Girl, Witherspoon and producing partner Bruna Papandrea have 16 more projects in the works. “We have a project pretty much at every studio right now,” she shared. Moviegoers will see a different Reese in Wild, a Fox Searchlight film directed by Jean-Marc Vallee.



Wild focuses on Strayed’s decision to walk from Southern California to the Oregon/Washington border along the rugged and unforgiving mountains of the Pacific Crest Trail. The character, played by Witherspoon, decides she needs to set out alone on the mammoth 100-day trek to put her life back together, four years after her mother’s passing. In large part, the movie stresses on her flashbacks as she mourns her dead mother Bobbi, played by Laura Dern, reported the Daily Mail.

“Audiences that saw me doing movies years ago have changed,” said Witherspoon. “They have dealt with topics, such as grief, loss, divorce and having children. You know your audience evolves and you have to evolve as well.”



Strayed has found she has quite a few things in common with Witherspoon, the only person in Hollywood to whom she sent her book. “Sometimes, people will decide that I have written this book about my wild behaviour in my 20s and Reese is America’s sweetheart and they want to put us in opposition to each other. And we laugh about that,” said Strayed.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 5^th,  2014.

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