Reese Witherspoon covers the new issue of Harper’s Bazaar UK. I’m including the newsstand cover and the subscriber’s cover, which is the Reese-in-blue one. I think the subscriber’s is much better, but overall, this is a lovely shoot. The interview is pretty good too, mostly because it’s a very intensive piece about how Reese made Wild, with lots of quotes from producers and friends, etc. My takeaway after reading it: Reese is going to get an Oscar nomination just for effort, basically. I mean, maybe people will be blown away by her performance, but I think the way Reese talks about the role is also very important. Now, she’s still going to lose to Julianne Moore, of course. You can read the full Bazaar piece here.
Again, she’s not an America’s Sweetheart: “Don’t put me in that box. Or any box, for that matter. People are complex, on-screen and off. Can’t we do justice to that?”
She wasn’t sure if she was right to play Cheryl in ‘Wild’: “To be honest, if this was an open-casting project, I don’t know if anyone would have cast me. I could be wrong. It’s nothing like any movie I’ve ever done – it was a way of challenging myself.’ Did she always see herself in the role? ‘Well,’ she says, thinking. ‘I definitely could. I just wanted to make sure [Cheryl] understood, no matter how the movie was going to get to the screen, it wasn’t about me having to be in it. If I’m not the right person to play the part, I need to know that. Ego is the death of all creativity.’
We have to save ourselves: ‘This idea that we are our own saviours, our own heroes, that’s hard, but also incredibly uplifting. I think I realised, probably in my twenties, that there’s no going home, do you know what I’m saying? Well, maybe when I was 18. I was like, “My parents can’t pay for me to have a life or go to college.” Whatever I was going to do in my life, I had to do it myself. Then when I had a little girl at 22, I was even more determined to, I don’t know… I went from just surviving to, “Who do I want to be for this other person?”’ That’s what happens when you have a child… ‘You kind of look inward.’
She swears she was still able to work, just not on projects she wanted: ‘It wasn’t as if there was a lack of roles being offered to me. It was the dynamic aspect of playing a really interesting, complicated person that was not readily available. Honestly, I don’t know a woman who isn’t complicated. It’s strange that you don’t see many complicated women on film; complicated meaning complex, I should say.’
Filming the drug scenes: ‘I’ve never done drugs, so I was really confused. I didn’t know what I was doing. It just required being in a really raw emotional place that didn’t feel good.’
Filming the sex scenes: ‘That’s, like, three per cent of the movie, but it took up a tremendous amount of fear in my mind because it’s daunting.’ How did she cope? ‘I never looked ahead at the schedule. I would wake up in the morning and say, “What are we doing today?” And I’d prepare on the way to work. Sometimes I was just terrified. Like a cat on a raft… “You can’t make me do it.”’
If she ever considered backing out: ‘I think about backing out of everything. I get to the beginning and I’m like, “I do not want to make this movie.” I’ve never had an experience where I was like, “I can’t wait to start.” I don’t know why. It’s always going to require something that doesn’t feel good, some sort of challenge or emotional gutting. It’s not a fun space to live in a lot of the time. It’s why I enjoy doing comedies. It’s much easier, thinking of what rhymes with truck.’
I don’t believe her when she says she didn’t prepare until the day of for her sex scenes. I just don’t believe her. Whenever an actor is doing any kind of nudity, there are lots of preparations and discussions and negotiations. She can’t just pop in and take off her bra, you know?
And I’ll admit it, I read the full interview and I choked up at one point when Reese started talking about her mother, and what she (Reese) learned about mother-daughter relationships from doing Wild and all of that. I’m not saying Reese is pouring out the profundities or anything, but she still moved me. Damn it, Reese! I’m starting to be okay with her Oscar campaign. She really feels passionately about this role.
Photos courtesy of Harper’s Bazaar UK.
I wonder what the point is to even do these photoshoots when they photoshop them so much they look like paintings and not even like the actual person they photographed (?).
Just use an old pic and photoshop it and put it as the cover or just draw them on photoshop or something.
Just a waste of money and time.
Also, a lot is said about how magazines lightening WOC skin (usually it’s due to the lighting) but nothing is said when they give these white actresses another eye color or make the eyes much bluer. Like they do with Angelina Jolie. They always give her these aqua blue eyes when she has muted green/hazel eyes.
i like the subscriber cover better. the newsstand cover looks all kinds of disproportionate.
now off to read the whole thing
Now i like Reese Witherspoon, but uh alcohol is a drug and I am pretty sure Little Miss “Don’t you know who I am”, knows a little something about that.
I agree. But there’re a lot of idiots out there who think alcohol is different because it’s legal. She’s obviously one of them.
Haha, my first thought when reading the title was that someone should’ve told her that doing drugs was just like doing shots–then she would’ve known what to do in a hurry.
LoL
Hehe
I hate alcohol & drugs but I have to say, there is a big difference between drinking and getting drunk than shooting up heroin into your arms or smoking a crack pipe. I would have no clue what I was doing with hardcore drugs and would look like an idiot even pretending I was doing them. That may be what she’s talking about.
That’s how I took it too.
Yep….I can get drunk on Crown and coke with the best of them, but give me a crack pipe and I’m lost 🙂
I’m not interested in this film, nor am I interested in her…she simply doesn’t do it for me…however I took this comment to mean she hadn’t done whatever drug she is doing in the film…not I’m ignorant to the fact that alcohol is catergorized as a drug
I laughed when I read the headline. If there’s someone in Hollywood who hasn’t done drugs, RW would not be my first chioice. Dunno if I believe that one…..
She’s always seemed so Type A that I can believe she’s never done illegal drugs. She seems like the type of person who likes to be in control at all times career-wise and doing illegal drugs would mess with the structure and order she seeks in her professional life.
I’m type A and a control freak, and I very rarely even drink, which miss witherspoon doesn’t seem to have a problem with. 🙂
ha. i actually like her in general. she just doesn’t seem like the type to me that hasnt at least tried things.
yes but drinking and smoking is pretty easy to understand, also how people react when they are high or drunk. i could play a believable drunk but i have no idea how to prepare and take heroin for example. also how you react to it.
Yeah, drinking and smoking are generally considered acceptable in ways that smoking heroin (is that what people do with it?) isn’t. I have a frame of reference about the former from watching other people at parties and in the movies. And most people don’t have a bias against drinking since it’s legalized, so long as you’re not an alcoholic or making one’s life torture by screaming, jumping around naked, or driving drunk. So in that sense I think what Witherspoon said makes sense. I won’t freak out on someone who drinks a glass of wine or beer (as long as they don’t drive afterwards), but I will most likely freak out if I see someone doing heroin (assuming I had any idea of what that looks like). I just assume the latter is going to definitely kill you, which is pretty much my only frame of reference about the drug. Oh heck, I’m sure cocaine would scare me too. Even though alcohol is a legalized drug, I don’t think my default assumption is that the person is going to die from using it, unless they get behind a wheel while drunk.
Did her parents say she had to pay for college on her own so as to practice an independent life skill or were they really unable to pay for it? I thought her parents were doctors and she went to private school. That’s why when she got pregnant (at 22, which is only recently considered to be young to get pregnant) I figured she had a different level of support than someone on 16 and pregnant. When she says she had to survive, she makes it sound like she was from a less rich socio-economic class than what I always previously read her to be from.
I thought all this, too. and also, wasn’t she already working pretty steadily at that point? not that i don’t agree with everything she’s saying. I just don’t know how much it actually applied to her, compared to the general population.
Yeah, I thought she was pretty successful career-wise. I don’t know if at the time I would have predicted that she would reach Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock level of fame, but she was working steadily and I remember articles in Time (or Newsweek?) predicting or touting her rise as a thing to watch. I think of her in the same vein as Natalie Portman (comes from an educated, successful well-to-do family AND also had a career at a young age that a lot of people in their 40s could only hope for. Both have an inner determination to be successful, but also have had a lot of socio-economic disadvantages to help them make their dreams come true).
Her father was a doctor, she went to private schools and got into Stanford. She didn’t attend, but already had some movie roles prior to graduating high school. Just speculating, but maybe her parents said “if you don’t go to college you’re on your own.” Who knows, but she definitely wasn’t going to be taking out student loans, work waitressing gigs and be an RA to get through Stanford. That said, she owned her choices and made herself successful.
She did attend Stanford for a year or two. In fact, she used to dorm. She went by “Laura Jean” (her real name) while she was there.
“Ego is the death of creativity.” uMM, OKkaaay, I think that has been your problem for a while now, Reese. Maybe she’s using the humbling nature of this film to win the Oscar nod(?).
Yeah I’m with you. She’s going the humble route. isn’t she. The last thing I remember about her is when she stood in front of the cops when stopped and said “do you know who I am?” The cop probably thought, ah no, I don’t, but you’re drunk lady. She ‘s definitely on the Oscar hunt.
Michiel Huisman (the new Daario Naharis) is in this film. So I’m already glad Reese did it.
Yeah of course she didn’t. She’s America’s sweetheart! My gawd Reese get over yourself.
She thinks she projects the image of the perfect southern girl with a heart that beams while her eyes say quite the opposite. her rest bitch face doesn’t lie. I’m sure she is one of the nastiest people out there.
Yeah. It’s funny that she’s rejecting the America’s Sweetheart label AFTER she got caught on camera making a drunken fool out of herself.
No kidding. She RELISHED in the role of “America’s Sweetheart” before she was arrested. Now she’s trying to brush it off, like something dirty and unwanted? Whatever Reese. I think she’s a very snaky and manipulative.
I don’t know. Many on this thread may be better people than I am. Entirely possible. But I’ll admit I’ve gotten wasted and made a complete ass out of myself before. I’ve said stupid, outrageous things that weren’t very flattering in retrospect. Difference is, nobody cares on a international level if I do. And sure, she sold the America’s sweetheart persona for awhile (though the roles she’s chosen over time should’ve been a clue that she’s generally a much more thoughtful actress than Legally Blonde would suggest). She’s a major movie star and they all get an easy, two dimensional narrative for the press to work with. Not sure I blame her for that. Her persona was just as make believe as anyone else’s. Nor do I blame her for being a type A personality. So she’s driven and ambitious. Good for her! What I do know about her (as she’s a friend of a friend) is that in “real life” she’s a smart, funny woman–one who has strong friendships with other women– who is doing more behind the scenes for women in Hollywood than just about anyone I can think of. She puts her money where her mouth is, and is actively working to develop and produce more meaningful stories featuring women actors, directors, and screen writers in Hollywood. I find it odd that so many woman go after Reese particularly. God knows there are an infinite number of much stupider, less useful, and more hypocritical actresses out there.
@DiamondRottweiler, it’s not just that she pulled this drunken stunt on a cop. She’s known to be horrible to her assistants, fake to her friends, and an overall nasty person behind the scenes. I believe her when she says she’s not America’s sweetheart. And I’m a fan of her acting, generally. I just don’t buy the image she’s sold for so long.
Also, her role in Freeway makes me think this is all her blowing smoke.
Jennifer Aniston take note. This is how you run an Oscar campaign. Talk about something of substance regarding the role and not how much of a stretch it was because you didn’t wear makeup. Up your game JA, you still have time.
IKR? The way Jennifer talks about Cake only accentuates how clueless she is as an actress.
I think Reese may have had a better relationship with her family in order to give out some of the quotes that she did. I don’t think Aniston would be able to discuss her mother in quite the same way as Reese did about hers because Aniston’s mom seems a little weird.
I thought what she had to say about saving herself had wisdom in it, but I did also wind up thinking that she had to survive other own without her parents’ support was a bit of a lie (or maybe an outright lie?).
I’ll buy that you’ve not done drugs if you want me to, but not that you’ve never SEEN them being abused. Hello, you were married to Ryan Phillipe.
The headline picture is a little off, her teeth look weird, she’s a pretty girl so not sure what happened there. I’m in the middle with her, don’t love or hate her. I thought her drunken rage was kinda funny and showed us how she really thinks of herself, definitely not the innocent sweetheart she wants to portray, but we all have those crazy moments I guess.
Actors also may pretend that the kill someone in a movie, do they have to be murderers to know how to do it?
Shia Labeouf is pretty method. He might try it.
lol you found the right example
I can’t help it, I love this drunk southern
b%&ch!
She may not do Narcs but she does/did love alcohol. Remember Atlanta, Georgia DWI incident where she asked police “do you know who I am? I am an American citizen, I have rights!” Haha…
She did nude and sex scenes in her teens and 20s. Also, she came from an upper middle class family, dropped out of Stanford, and had a steady and fairly successful acting career for a young adult before she had her first child. The interview isn’t bad but it’s just full of BS, that’s all.
I really wish Emma Watson was playing the lead. I think it would have been a good, challenging role for her. She is about the right age, and has the look of being strong and determined but also a little wary and uncertain.
Bummer. Drugs are really fun.
LOL
I’m smoking crack right now!
Is it really necessary to bring up her drunk rant in every single thread of hers? It was funny and meme-tastic, yeah, but having someone make a fool of themselves while intoxicated is nothing new at all. I’ve been through that. Most people I know have. And she apologised for it and recognised her mistake. It bothers me to see that brought up over and over again because that’s the treatment you give to the Dylan Farrow situation… and we can all agree those are definitely not in the same level, right?
Most people you know have yelled “do you know who I am?!” at a cop after their husbands are pulled over for endangering people’s lives because they are so drunk? Huh.
Her apology was no apology at all; it was a fauxpology. And when she claims she never did drugs, it is completely on-point to bring up that yes, she has, and to excess at that. Alcohol is a drug.
Definitely not on the same level as Dylan, of course. However, I think the intoxication incident does warrant mention here because it’s related to the subject matter.
Yes we should bring it up! That video is pure gold! To steal a line from Kathy Griffin.. “it’s like a gift from the baby Jesus”.
Honestly though, I too have done dumb dumb dumb stuff drinking in my twenties. But I never got pulled over while drunk driving, gotten out of the car, and YELLED AT A POLICE OFFICER for daring to interrupt my drunken drive home. #AmericanCitizenforever
Honestly, though… do cops actually expect the drunk drivers they pull over to react like civilized easy-going people?
She is a good actress so I will probably see Wild.
That being said, that drunk incident was entitled and disgusting. There have been rumours about what an unpleasant person she is circulating for YEARS. That incident just brought it to light.
Her people did a great job of sweeping it under the rug though. #Neverforget #AmericanCitizenforever
Stop already with the humble bragging – seriously gag-inducing. Of course you’ve never done any drugs. OF COURSE NOT! We get it Reese. You’re pure. You’re strong. You’ve always been on the straight and narrow. Get over yourself and sit the f–k down! We.don’t.care.
My first thought when reading the exerpts was “not America’s Sweetheart, suuuuure”. I think it’s interesting to see how far from her old image she’s willing to depart from. Right now it seems like it’s in name only.
Why is she making herself sound like a down on their luck poor kid. Her parents are doctors, Reese dropped out of Stanford because she was sooo successful in Hollywood. Stop with the lies Reese!
Bull. She got drunk enough to get into a car her drunk husband was driving, and then scream at a cop who was trying to keep them from killing people. Alcohol is a drug. I can’t stand her “sweet little white blonde girl” act. She’s sickening. And the protests that oh, she really doesn’t want to be America’s Sweetheart make it that much worse.
Just dropping a note here to say that the Wild book was pretty good. I’ll probably want to see the movie sometime just for that.
ITA. I related so strongly to Cheryl’s realizations about her mom and family, it was like a punch to the gut. Not the rest of her craziness, but I really did like the book. I bet the scenery will be fantastic.
She changes her tune with the role she is promoting. Remember the “it’s ok to be a good girl” rant. She always drags her feelings about her daughter into every PR campaign AND then lies and says she was 22 when she became a mother. She was 23. I hope she doesn’t get a nomination. I really hope someone comes out of nowhere and Reese is in 6th place. It will do her good. Give her something to recover from. Builds character.
Apart from drinking alcohol (and I’m not a big drinker, cocktails make me sick to my stomach, wine gives me a headache, and beer makes me have to go to the bathroom), I have never done drugs either, not even pot. The closest thing I’ve done to smoking is hookah and I felt terrible the next day (note: do not do hookah on an empty stomach!). I would have no idea what to do with drug paraphernalia. I don’t know what rolling a joint means nor why you need to roll something in order to smoke it or what you would have to do in order to “snort” something. I’m okay being clueless though.
I can’t picture Reese in this role, and I admit I am not really into her after her past antics. I read the book and just shook my head because I thought the author was really quite out there and flipping irresponsible for her own safety by the way she acted.
That said, I finished the book. I felt like an ambulance chaser. I’ve done enough backpacking in my life to understand what a fool Cheryl Strayed was on her journey.
I’m sure I’ll probably rent the movie when it hits Netflix and I’ll feel like an ambulance chaser once again because 1) my attitude about the book’s author, and 2) my negative attitude about Reese. Double Whammy!
I know I’ll get blasted for being so negative, but honestly I do not feel charitable towards either of them.
If she’s going for the image of prim little america’s blonde princess again – sorry Reese, that ship has sailed long ago. Late 30s divorcee with 3 kids, 2 husbands, a drunken yelling at cops episode… hmmm
Yeah right, never done drugs, for recreational use or pleasure. Leo Dicaprio also said that after Wolf of Wall Street. Did we believe him? Hell no.