Reese Witherspoon’s ‘no brainer’
For Reese Witherspoon, who took home Hollywood’s Golden Boy portraying country singer June Carter Cash in 2005’s Walk the Line, it brought something no one — certainly not she — expected. A-list Hollywood writer/director James L Brooks wrote a role especially for her.
Witherspoon portrays a top female softball player whose love life gets all mixed up in the romantic comedy How Do You Know. The film hits cinemas on Friday with co-stars Owen Wilson, Paul Rudd and Jack Nicholson.
“(The) director and script are the most important thing (and) this was a no-brainer,” said Witherspoon. “He (Brooks) writes some of the greatest female protagonists.”
Indeed, Brooks has had a strong track record writing and directing films with strong female characters, starting with 1983’s Terms of Endearment up through 1997’s As Good as It Gets, which earned Helen Hunt an Oscar for lead female actor.
In How Do You Know, Witherspoon plays Lisa, who loses her life’s focus when her softball playing days come to an abrupt end at age 31. Lisa embarks on an affair with fellow athlete Matty (Wilson), a clueless baseball player looking for a good time (but) who tries to reform his ways under the sway of Lisa’s allure.
At the same time, she is drawn to another man, George, a sensitive businessman portrayed by Rudd. While Lisa likes George, her life experience and undeveloped emotional maturity put her more in sync with Matty.
Witherspoon, who shot to fame a decade ago with a string of acclaimed roles in low-budget films such as Election as well as huge hits like Legally Blonde, said she was intrigued by the contrasts between Lisa and herself.
“I’m not really that athletic,” she said. “And Lisa is a woman who doesn’t know how to talk about her feelings, whereas I can talk constantly about my feelings and romantic conflicts and relationships and loves lost and gained,” she laughed.
“Also I usually play very verbal characters, but this is a woman who isn’t interested in that, and really doesn’t want to talk about things,” Witherspooon said. “I met a few women athletes like that, I sort of modelled the character on — more masculine in their emotional qualities. That was all really different for me.”
At age 34, Witherspoon does see at least one similarity between her A-list career in Hollywood and that of a top athlete. Both can be suddenly cut short by anything ranging from injuries to diminishing skills or fading popularity.
“It’s a career that shifts. We have our time that we work, and work a lot, but we have a shelf life. So you have to understand what your plan A is, your plan B and your 911.”
The actor also tries hard to cultivate her personal life outside of acting. She is a mother of two children, one son and one daughter, with ex-husband, actor Ryan Phillippe.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 16th, 2010.
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