Reese Witherspoon is proof that the expiry date placed on women over forty throughout Hollywood’s history was a waste of talent. The Morning Show star has been involved with many of the best TV series of the last decade.
Through her production company Hello Sunshine, Witherspoon has provided complex roles for similar actors and has a track record of bringing titans over to drama series like Big Little Lies on HBO.
Of course, she’s a movie star too. And while she’s tackled lots of intense material, it was this adventure movie she struggled with the most.
Witherspoon told Interview Magazine that Jean-Marc Vallée’s Wild changed her the most, “I had hypnosis, I was so scared. I was having panic attacks for three weeks before I started. There was the nudity, sexuality, and drug-use aspect, but also being alone on camera with no other actors. I hadn’t ever been alone in scenes for days and days. There were probably 25 days of the shoot where I had no other actor opposite me. It was just me and a camera and a backpack.”
“Cheryl Strayed’s book was so beautiful and sacred to me because it spoke to me so deeply about how we as women have to save ourselves. There’s no mother or father coming to save us. There’s no spouse. I thought it was radical that at the end of the film, she ends up with no family, no money, no job, no partner, and she’s happy. I don’t know if I’ll ever work that hard again, but it changed me on a cellular level.”
It was all worth it, Wild is a deeply moving success from a director remembered fondly.
Find more of the best movies based on books on our list of the best movies of all time, or find out what new movies are coming.