Reese Witherspoon Wished She Could’ve Fired Herself From the Movie ‘Wild’
Reese Witherspoon has starred in a variety of movies ranging from Walk the Line to Legally Blonde. But perhaps no other film pushed her like 2014’s Wild did. In hindsight, nothing could’ve prepared the actor for what she was really getting into when she signed up for the flick.
Reese Witherspoon wanted to fire herself from ‘Wild’
Wild was based on a true story about a woman who hikes across one of the country’s longest trails after a disastrous life event. Witherspoon starred as Cheryl Strayed in the movie, and also served as a producer for the film.
Like with Strayed, however, Wild required Witherspoon to travel far outside of her comfort zone to do. For the Oscar winner, filming the movie meant enduring one uncomfortable moment after the other. For instance, she had to learn how to act on drugs, which was challenging in itself.
“I’ve never done drugs, so I was really confused,” Reese once told Harper’s Bazaar. “I didn’t know what I was doing. It just required being in a really raw emotional place that didn’t feel good.”
The movie’s love scene was also a major concern for Witherspoon. She was used to doing love scenes throughout her career. But with Wild, she had to be intimate with two other actors. Which was a brand new experience.
“There were small descriptions in the script, but when he started describing what we were going to do, that’s when I started to panic,” she added. “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 … Sometimes I was just terrified. Like a cat on a raft… ‘You can’t make me do it.'”
Witherspoon was eventually able to adjust to the film’s intimidating requirements. However, she admitted that her commitment to the film wavered from time to time.
“I would have fired myself a couple of times during rehearsals because I was so scared, oh my God,” she said. “I got my s*** together, but it took me a while.”
Reese Witherspoon had to explain to her daughter why she had to go nude in ‘Wild’
Because of the authority she had over the feature, Witherspoon didn’t have to go nude for the film. But she felt the only way to truly represent her character and honor Strayed was to expose everything.
“I had to make a choice when I decided to do the film on how much I wanted to bear,” Witherspoon once told E! News. “I have a real story to tell here because Cheryl was completely honest when she wrote her book.”
“It was scary and challenging,” Witherspoon continued “It’s not just a movie about somebody walking. It’s really about someone who feels profoundly hurt and lost.”
But Witherspoon’s daughter, Ava Phillippe, took issue with her mom showing too much of herself on the big screen.
“Ava’s 15 and there are parts in the film that I had to explain to her. I told her, ‘I’m naked in the movie…’ and she was like, ‘Mom, that’s so weird!” Witherspoon once told New Magazine (via Contact Music). “I said, ‘I had to be brave Ava, and I couldn’t just tell the parts I was comfortable with, because Cheryl was brave to tell her whole story, so I had to tell even the parts that I was scared to do.'”
Witherspoon still sympathized with her daughter’s reaction. After all, the Legally Blonde star would’ve felt similar if her own mother did a nude scene for a film.
“She’s like, ‘I know but if this was Grandma Betty…’ I said, ‘You’re right, that would be really, really weird!’ But she’s very proud of me,” Witherspoon said.
