29 September 2014
Newsdesk
Reese Witherspoon is a "complex human being" with "many shades".
The 38-year-old actress made her name starring in comedies like Legally Blonde, but is hoping to show a different side to her with her new flick Wild. It's based on a memoir by Cheryl Strayed and follows her as embarks on a 1,100-mile solo hike in an effort to overcome the problems in her life.
It's an indie film which Reese pushed to be made and she hopes it'll show people just what she's made of.
“When people underestimate me, it’s actually a comfortable place for me,” she told American Vogue. “‘Oh, that’s what you think I am; well, no, I’m not.’ I’m a complex human being. I have many different shades.”
Reese's career hasn't gone quite to plan over the last few years as some of the movie's she's been in, such as Water for Elephants alongside Robert Pattinson, didn't do as well as expected. That led to an article in The New Yorker which claimed she was one of many stars who were past their prime - something the actress was astounded by.
"And there I was thinking I was reading about Ben Stiller!” she joked. “Thank God their articles are so long. I was on page six. Nobody can have got that far.”
In Wild, Reese's character is seen taking drugs and having casual sex. It was important to Reese that these parts of the story remained, although she knew it would be a battle to get a studio to agree.
"I just didn’t want to hear, ‘Oh, we don’t want to see Reese have sex... Oh, can we not have any profanity'’” she explained. “I wanted it to be truthful, I wanted it to be raw, I wanted it to be real.
"Nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors, but I think there’s a general sense now that I’ve lived a pretty... textured life. So many of the things that Cheryl goes through in the book I’ve been through, you know' I’ve been married, I’ve been divorced. I haven’t lost my mother, but my mother’s mother died in a very similar way, of an aneurysm very suddenly..."
Despite her desire to stay true to Cheryl's life, some of the shoot was hard. Cheryl had to show Reese how to pretend to shoot heroin and the actress was so nervous about shooting the intimate scenes she visited a hypnotist to help with her anxiety.