Conversations with Reese Witherspoon

thank you so much it's my absolute pleasure to be here I'm I'm Dave Karger I'm the host of a show called frontrunners that airs on Fandango and Access Hollywood and if you were to ask me what my favorite movie of 2014 is and in fact I put this on my Twitter the answer is wild I am absolutely crazy about this bill so it is my distinct pleasure to introduce to you a past Screen Actors Guild Award winner and a current Best Actress SAG Award nominee for wild Reese Witherspoon hi how are you what a nice turnout thank you thanks so much for being here thank you my pleasure now the way that these Q&A is work these are a little bit different because we're not just gonna talk about Wilde we're gonna go through your entire career so sit back and we're gonna we're gonna do a little memory lane and what's great about you is that you started out as a child 1700 before I start asking you about man the moon which was your first film I'd like to know how performing as a concept even entered your consciousness Wow I you know I always I'm always struggled to figure that out because I know I wanted to be an actor since the time I was about seven years old and it didn't make any sense because I grew up in Nashville Tennessee and my dad was a doctor and my mom was a nurse and I just I don't know I just I ended up telling my mom I really didn't wanted to be an actress and my neighbor was had a flower shop and they did a commercial down the street and then they asked me to be in it and that was it I was like I have got to do this and as a little kid from the time I was seven years old every Saturday I would go for four hours of acting class every Saturday whoa and I loved it I just left it till the point with all the kids graduated and went on to the other stuff and I started doing adult acting classes and then I was in the commercial classes and then I loved like the hair and makeup classes and just everything I just couldn't go enough so let's go back to the flour commercial what did you do in it well I remember it's really super short so they had to put me on three phone books every when there were phone book and I don't know I just had to be super happy about flowers so man the moon you find out that there's an open casting call yeah my understanding correct me if I'm wrong is that you're going in thinking you might have a shot at like a bit part right um I've been doing local commercials in Nashville like for radio stations and air conditioners and stuff like that and acting competitions and things like in Atlanta in New York and then they there was an ad in the paper in Nashville and said do you want to be in a movie and I was like yeah I do I thought it was just gonna be to be an extra and I just went down to this like blind audition and there were all grown-ups and then me at the very end my dad dropped me on office stood in line I think I was was 14 right and I ended up standing in line for a couple hours and I finally got in there and they said who dropped you I was like my dad dropped me I'm he's gonna come back and pick me up and she said well can you can you act I said yes I can she said well can you read these lives and okay and I remember I remember the casting director her name was sherry Rhodes and um she and I didn't hear anything in about a month later I think it called me out to LA to do a screen test and with Robert Mulligan who directed to kill a mockingbird which was unbelievable and and I got the lead of the movie where after my screen test which was crazy so when did you start kind of having the fantasy that you could actually get this part was it before you got the callback or not until the moment you heard you had that callback um you know I think I learned to mitigate my expectation so even a like doing the commercials actually helped because I understood that there's a lot of rejection you know and I started understanding that from the time I was about 12 and I was determined anyway like that to me as an actor is like you can you get the door so hard you're like I'm gonna do it anyway yeah or that might be the definition of crazy kind of thing okay but no and then I don't know I don't I didn't hear from them for two months and then out of nowhere they called and I remember walking in from softball practice and picked up the phone they're like you got the part I was crazy and then I had to go to Louisiana for the whole summer which is where you were born yeah I'm from New Orleans Yeah right great job hey one of the things that people love about man the moon love about your performance is the innocence the first kiss the young love where had you experienced that already and you drew from that or was this just completely invented for this character um let me think I know I know I think it was probably I like you know I was still young those 14 so I hadn't ever really had a boyfriend I think I'd kissed a guy once right so but I thought I was very experienced I've got a lot of sense memory to the table no I never member the seventeen year old boy was so horrified that he had to kiss me and it was just terrible Oh Jason London Jason London yes right it was great we all were young together and and Sam Waterston was in the movie too so that must have been pretty cool he was so great and this was like before Law & Order and he was just this incredible theatre and he just was really helpful to me and we had like almost a month of rehearsals with amazing Robert Mulligan the director from to kill a mockingbird and you know summer 42 and just incredible that he helped nurture us and he gave me so much advice that I still use to this day like I was so nervous and a scene and he made me chew gum and when I started chewing gum I just relaxed you know and I was like and I still use it sometimes if I'm nervous I'll chew gum or eat something in a scene and actually kind of makes you concentrate on something else I like that and you've kind of come full circle because then you just recently did in here adviced with Sam watersense daughter which is crazy I know it's crazy she was like I met you on the set and you were 14 and I was 12 oh we're so crazy yeah when's the last time you watch man the moon I showed it to my kids like probably three years ago what did they think they I mean they loved it but it's I think it's also real for them it's just bizarre to see your mom doing I mean my daughter watched wild the other day and it's just intense you know I think it's hard to say that's my mom and that's the character it was it you know and your older kids what's their age in relation to being 14 and man the moon my daughter's 15 and a half oh my god it's like right there so yeah so I and sometimes I look at or anything I was a professional actor standing on sets when I was younger than that like she can barely remember a backpack expected to show up a be on time and no on my lines and and it yeah that's a little weird I was over I don't know what drove me but I was driven I loved it yeah so you did some TV films around the same time as man the moon I'm gonna skip ahead a little bit because I'm interested in the fact that you applied to Stanford University yes got in mm-hmm went for a full year yeah but then decided that there were other opportunities that you were wanting to pursue was that something like the movie fear or was it freeway but what were the projects that you said I got to get out of here well yeah my parents insisted that I go to college so I applied to Stanford couldn't believe I got in cuz I didn't get in anywhere else I got into Stanford and I met the woman who read my essay and she was like I read your essay I let you I was like pinky okay I had no other option but I stopped out it I mean it was really expensive and I was making more money making movies than to pay my tuition and I was either gonna accumulate all these student loans and bills and or start a career that I knew I loved and it wasn't sure you know the first year was like I don't know maybe I'll go into pre-med or something but then I I auditioned for a movie with the Robert Benton directed who directed Kramer vs Kramer and it was a movie with Paul Newman Twilight yeah it was called Twilight right which is you know now Twilight was something else and gene Hackman is range yeah gene Hackman and Susan Sarina were my parents and it was like a three scene role but it was such a huge opportunity it really got momentum going for me in the business because Robert Benton helped he called Gary Ross and then he put me in Pleasantville and then Gary Ross called Alexander Payne and they put me in election so it was like kind of momentum Twilight was pretty racy though as I recall your stuff wasn't it um yeah I mean there was nudity and I was kind of like this ballsy girl and I was so scared um I was so scared and and but I thought you know I really liked how he dealt with nudity and Kramer vs Kramer wasn't the salacious thing it was actually like a way to confront you know as a way I was confronting Paul Newman and in the movie and I was being very sort of loud and brash and then it was so funny I went to the premiere and I'm sitting there and I'm like so nervous and because he kept coming to the scene and I'm naked and he comes in and he sees me and and I go up and then I was supposed to have all this other scene and they cut my scene so it's just all me just naked and that was like a really good lesson for me so I didn't I hadn't dig I didn't do nudity for the whole like until Wilde's right where I was in control and I knew I could get rid of it if I wanted to know that's it I know I could use it the way I wanted it to be used instead of other people deciding how they were gonna show me or my body mm-hm we mentioned freeway let's talk about that one because from what I understand that was one that was a hurdle for you that's the one that's kind of the dark twisted take on Little Red Riding Hood with Brooke Shields and keep us other lives and you were just like so brash and that wasn't frightened you a little bit didn't it but I felt like when you did that you you felt you had accomplished something pretty cool yeah and that was freeway doing for you it was really cool for me because that's when I learned what comedy was because I didn't think it was funny at all I was just playing as a very serious Texas girl who is in the penal system and she's sort of a jail baby and she's and I just played it really straight and we went to Sundance the movie premiered at Sundance and people were like laughing so hard and like hugging themselves laughing at this you know what this character was really strong convictions and a really strong accent and I thought I was doing high drama and I was like oh that's what comedy is like comedies just committing it's committing like to an extreme you know it's not yuk yuk it's no it's actually just never laughing at your own jokes like being so committed to who that person is where they're from their commie and and never ever ever laughing at that person hmm taking it as seriously as they take themselves so that was a huge learning experience to me and what about fear because fear is the greyman with Mark Wahlberg word you guys go out and he becomes obsessed and super jealous and I feel like that was a turning point for him I think that was an experience where a lot of people started looking at him I guess he had done Basketball Diaries but people started looking at him as an actual actor from that one what was your experience like working with him right well I know Mark it just he was kind of coming off the Calvin Klein campaign and trying to be taken seriously in Hollywood and Jamie Foley the director gave him a really great shot to be the lead of a movie so was the first time he was a lead of a movie um but it was great it was you know that was my only experience that I had doing like kind of a thriller or genre and movie and to be totally honest as a woman there's not a lot for you to do in those movies except be scary I was like this is not my skillset is not really this right right I mean I'm not that person who's frightening me I just it's not what I do well so I it was that was a learning strip I just didn't I felt sort of like well like what am I doing here but probably for the exposure I mean I that was 96 so I was 23 years old at the time and that was late you had fear was coming out you had to see that movie was like we swear this food in Mark Wahlberg you had to see there in the roller coaster and I need to write coaster yeah yeah I guess it served its it served us well there's a famous roller coaster scene if you haven't seen it they're really sexy song it's a good scene going forward a couple of years I want to talk about Pleasantville yes because that's you talking about you mentioned Gary Ross that film was so great and for people who don't remember it's got that great mix of the black and white and the color sequences and its recent Tobey Maguire Joan Allen yeah Jeff Daniels I think yeah he'll may see a dream cast that must have been interesting and I'm sure provided semi Walker Paul Walker was first maybe yeah and some technical challenges I'm sure as well with all of the lack of a black and white to color what was that like um yeah that was really cool audition really hard to get that movie and it was hard I think I audition like seven or eight times with Toby without Toby and Toby and I you know really bonded over that experience but yeah there were technical aspects of you know color correcting the black and white now I'm sure it's so easy but you know the movie slowly turns to color as they become more self-aware so yeah it was beautiful costumes and that was sort of my first experience of being on a big set with constructed sets out in Malibu Canyon they built an entire city oh my god this like a real movie um I didn't know if anybody had that kind of money to make a movie and then the next year was cruel intentions yeah which was I mean everybody was talking about that film you know without date of Dangerous Liaisons and such an amazing cast on that one yeah right well yeah I was um the time I was living with my boyfriend Ryan I'm Philip Edie and he was doing it with share Michelle Gellar and they couldn't find the third lead and I was like well I don't know who you guys are gonna get and he and the director took me out to dinner and I was like what what do you what do you want and they and they just they said we want you to do the part and I really did not want to do that part I just didn't why I didn't get it I didn't understand I didn't see myself as that character either she was written very sort of like like a limp noodle and I was like this is not fun and so I said well I'll think about it but we got to go we got to make her you know have some sort of ferocity of spirit or some sort of something she's a little a spine you know and so we rewrote the character to be more of a feminist and it turned out really cool it was really fun making the movie yeah enact elizy that got a lot of attention I feel we made that for like no money right yeah the same year 99 brought election which was it was just one of the classic roles and films of your career what was your first reaction when you read Tracy Flick and saw what she was gonna be doing like I have to do this part I have to fart and I remember going in I read the script and I just thought it was amazing and then my boyfriend's time Ryan said have you seen Citizen Ruth and I hadn't seen Citizen Ruth so we were at Sundance and he had seen an end our Lord is surely return and it was it was called meet Ruth Stoops and then they then it was out Xander Payne's first full-length feature and I saw it and y'all if you haven't seen that movie it is so good she and it's it's classic Alexander Payne where it's middle of America but they're dealing with both sides of abortion pro rights and pro-choice and you know and all that stuff and then it's it's just great and I was blown away and then I so I went in to meet with him and I just looked at him and he said hello he always wears a suit on Tuesdays I know I one day was because he was wearing a suit and hello and I said I shouldn't unless you know I'm the right person with this part you can cast somebody else but you'll be wrong oh that's so Tracy Flick I don't even know why I did it I was just like so in the character and about a week later I got the call and I got the part I feel like a lot of the times people auditioned and I know this is a refractor said it's important for I say this to actors all the time people just want to be told what to do you know sometimes they have so many decisions to make they just want the decisions to be taken away from them and just to go get me the ball I'm not gonna disappoint you I promise and I'm gonna work to the best of my ability and I'm gonna work hard for you you know and sometimes that just such a relief to someone who has to answer 200 million questions a day you're there to make their life easier yeah I was like I got it don't worry about it I got it so when you're filming a movie like election do you just feel like things are clicking and this is gonna be a big deal yeah you know sometimes you just read something and it just gets in you and I don't know where I came up with her voice or her accent I started spending a lot of time in Omaha where we shot the movie and then then I started having an Omaha accent like that and and then there was a funny kind of walk she did and Alexander and I kind of I don't know I just went and I said I think she kind of walks like this and he was like great let's do it and then he kind of he likes to talk in analogies of a lot of like this is like Lady Macbeth and she's washing her hand after she tears on the poster saying she's washing her hands like out damned spot and he goes no I want you cover your mouth against the wall and act like you're Janet Leigh in psycho and but it all comes through in the movie I mean in little he's like I want you and I remember one scene where we were I find out that I won in my character Y in the election but I basically rigged it or something and I can't remember and then I'm supposed to celebrate and he said you know she celebrates by hugging herself and I was like so we stood there and I'm alone in the hall and I'm hugging myself he's like that's not right he's like I want you to jump up and down so I started jumping him down he's like no no no put your feet together and act like you're a pole and jump up and down like a pogo stick and that's what it is to be any human self he was just great with physicality and use the animal metaphor isn't like you're a panther walking down yes a one of my favorite directors cuz he's so fun yeah did he ever throw you a movie reference and you had no idea what he was talking about uh all the time he's such a cinephile and like part of he did the rear view projection with Matthew Broderick and it was all about Italian cinema marchello Marcy irani and I was like I'd have to go home at night and like Google everything and now for people that don't know sixteen years later you're gonna work with him again yeah I mean maybe funny they put that out yeah he asked me to do his his next movie which is really cool it's very cool movie and downsizing yeah downsizing um with Matt Damon but Matt Damon's not available this year so hopefully next year okay his busy guy I'm still excited for him I'm available hey if anybody else has something for me to do this here Oh God so now I want to fast forward a year to 2000 where you did something very high-profile in your career that was not a movie it was a TV show friends two episodes as Jen Aniston's sister how did that come about well I had had a baby and I was sitting at home and the couch for probably two to three months trying to figure out what to do with this baby because I was 22 years old or something and I had a baby and it was just filled with her so I just obsessively watched friends I and I that I thought they became my friends and I belonged there recalls my agent I said I want to be there I want to be in Central Perk peace of people know me and I know them and he was like okay well and then I guess something came up and they wrote they had written me apart and I wouldn't did it and it was it was hard it was actually really hard for me why because I had never done television and I never done half-hour sitcom which is a whole other muscle it's a whole other skill set that I have so much respect for those six actors that they did that every single week made it fresh made it funny they they just really honed the the parts of themselves that were super appealing and I was just flailing out there the whole time I didn't know if things were funny and I just Jen Aniston was great and David Schwimmer was great those are the main two people I had to work with but I remember getting off and I was like I'm never ever ever doing this again it was ray art they asked me to come back and was like I'm too scared it was too hard has it been fun for you this season because at all of these shows the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice and now SAG you're nominated and so is Jen so you guys are sure running into each other all the time it's been so great you know I kiss as actors we're not you know we it's just like you know you're thrown onto a set and you have to immediately make a family you know every situation it's a collaborative medium anybody thinks they're working by themselves is crazy you need that whole group of people to survive and and something really great so it's so weird to get to award season it's like well individuals and the media will kind of pit people against each other nobody feels any of that everybody's just like oh my gosh I'm so excited to hang out with these people and because we're so used to making a little family so it's almost like you make little families during court season do you know Julianne Moore and Jill lard art and I went to dinner the other night and I mean hang out with Felicity Joe and like this is just great incredible people that you are so in awe of and usually as women we don't get to work with other women so it's really fun to spend time with them I like that you've said that after election you even though that movie did so well and got so much of clean you got a Golden Globe nomination for it you said that it was hard for you after that to get roles that you were happy with that maybe people identified you so much with Tracy Flick that bit hindered you youth yeah what's up with that I mean I I had one studio that the studio had hated me so much in that movie he wouldn't see me for any of the movies so like there were out of eight studios I had I probably had two studios were like they thought I was Tracy Flick they thought they were like no she's unappealing she's unattractive I don't like that girl and I love acting I know but they would even see me for a general meeting so I had to like that's when I kind of started to rethink what I needed to do next in order to change people's opinion because I got that over and I was really hard for me to get jobs after that hmm well then along comes Legally Blonde right and I'm intrigued by what I've read was your first impression of Elle Woods that some people might not like her that you weren't sure if you liked her when you first read her right well when I first read it I was nervous that it was sort of all fluff and no heart and we had to kind of go back in and I was just nervous that the whole movie could be confection and considered just sort of this movie about a bimbo you know and that's not to me what I wanted it to be and and I really went back and forth and then when I finally decided to do the movie and I'm committed to it we went back in with the screenwriters were great and just wrote sort of a more thoughtful character arc about this woman who's never been taken seriously in her life and completely underestimated like no one ever even her parents think she's a bimbo and an idiot and then she gets to college or her boyfriend thinks person and then she gets to Harvard and her her whole class thinks she's an idiot and and I was like I just had so much compassion for her and at this when I was trying to decide to do the movie - I was watching Bravo and there was a Gloria Steinem was on talking about Private Benjamin and how important that what that was for women that message that you can that you can be feminine but also be a feminist you know that you don't have to that you can like to get your nails done your hair done but still believe that you know women can accomplish anything and how important that was and I thought it just I somehow connected the dots and I was like that's that's who L is she's a modern feminist I like that was it hard to get the tone right on that because I mean it it is a movie that's silly but it does have such heart and it's so surprising in a lot of ways was that something that you and was it Robert Luketic yeah it was great because he brings a lot of fun to the character and the world and creates sort of colorful world he's a very imaginative creative guy and then Marc Platt who produced it who also didn't the woods and Rachel getting married he's an incredible producer he and I kind of really worked on grounding the character and and it really just takes a few scenes you set it up a little bit in the beginning and then you know you have to find that moment with that I was called the key to the character which is that one seeing that that tells you that kind of breaks your heart that's like oh wait I've I never really saw that person until then huh do you recall what that scene is in Legally Blonde yeah she's in that yeah she's in the she's in the nail salon and she's talking to Paul at Jennifer Coolidge and she says no one ever expected anything of me my parents always wanted me to be a Victoria's Secret model and I always I knew I could be more I just if somebody believed in me Lee and then she's like and then I realized I have to believe in myself or something something like that I like that well then you were on a roll there because the year after Legally Blonde was Sweet Home Alabama which is a character Melanie that apparently was someone that you really saw yourself in in a way and and related to from what I understand yeah and that was a cool part because I knew there were a bunch of girls that had already passed on it read it and passed it and it was one of those scripts that was laying around and they sent it to me right after Legally Blonde I was like this this is me you know this person that's gone away and thinks they have this great life but really you know the second you go home everybody is like what everything honestly I'm not even kidding the first time I took my husband like my husband back to Nashville I took him to lunch at this place and literally outside there was a Civil War Reenactment and the people say lon he's like is this a joke I grew up like we'd have to go to some War reenactments my dad dressed in the memorabilia and it was it was actually so it felt really close to home for me I remember seeing that filming I'm going to the premiere of that film and talking to you it was 13 years ago and I was like I like the movie but god I would have chosen Patrick Dempsey like and and that was right when great I think he started on Grey's Anatomy like right after that or something about her very well Disney had made our film and then Disney produces or his ABC disney so they loved him in that movie so much that they I think chose him to be the grades which he's amazing and he's so smart and so handsome I know it was a tough choice between those two guys I think that's why they made me wear nothing wrong Josh Lucas by the way I want talking about the movie Vanity Fair and I remember interviewing you for that one as well and I just loved that one for you because you got to work with me or not you're who I just think is fabulous and that was an interesting shoot for you because you were pregnant during that but I think you felt like it worked for the character because it added in like a sumptuousness to you it added something I've been pregnant three times every single time I've said I am NOT working during this pregnancy I am NOT gonna work I'm just I'm gonna enjoy it I'm gonna lay around and put my feet up and every single time I made a movie I did American Psycho when I was pregnant with Ava okay I did a Vanity Fair her when I was pregnant at deacon and then I did a movie called Devil's knot when I was pregnant with Tennessee and all of them were hard but and being about kind of harder subject matter - yeah so um that was asking for trouble yeah but the vanity the Vanity Fair was I mean amazing you know to do one of those beautiful costume movies were three hours of wigs and an hour of corsets and they had built a corset for me that had a hole in it and I just kept getting bigger and bigger Mira Nair's like oh my god what are we gonna do so I started carrying rugs and part of it like a basket like this particular and one of my favorite like behind-the-scenes photos I've ever had was me because we know when you're pregnant you're so tired and they bought me a lawn chair like a total ghetto lawn chair they're even full like 18th century clothing with my way like fully like labor watch the following year 2005 what movie I'm about to talk about walk the line okay so great the SAG Award win the Oscar winning mean that must have been a whole dream come true but to go back my understanding is that you were terrified at the idea of singing live uh yeah I mean we started rehearsing we rehearsed for seven months before we ever shot anything with t-bone Burnett who coached us basically how to be country music Sooners and Joaquin I've never seen an actor so dedicated to performance he he worked all day all night he had a band every day we'd go shoot all day and then he'd go play all night long and I don't think I even met Joaquin until like a year later Wow he was gone he was Johnny we had to call him 'junior during the shooting and um and even when we were rehearsing for seven months he was junior he wasn't Joaquin he was it was Justin it was intense process and we he had to play guitar I had to play autoharp you know learning instruments doing the recordings which is so terrifying I called my lawyer a bunch of times and I was like get me out of Smitty he's like are you being serious I was like get me on his movie I can't do it it's gonna be a joke it's gonna be like when they record people and they play it back and I don't make fun of them and he did he try to get you out I'll try to get me out but he called me back he's like you can't get out it's done wait so went so when your lawyer calls whoever the studio the producers whatever do they start does the producer then come to you in like what's what's going on are you okay did this cause a drama or was it did it stay behind the scenes no I mean I don't know if they like really didn't call and go to pretended that they called and told me I had to do it anyway which is probably what they have been doing for about you know 20 years because I it's it's before every movie I get in a panic but this was a heightened heightened organic I think we had like a bucket off stage that Yuri literally had to throw up all that was so scared if we go in to do these these performance scenes in front of 600 people and we're not singers it was terrifying you know those people you read actors you read you know profiles and you're like they're singing the whole time like show tunes and you're like that's not us that was not what Ken and I were really good oh my god this is awful no no it's a way so how did you get to a point where you felt like okay I'm ready to do this or did you never really feel ready I never felt good about it I never felt I never thought well I always feel better when Joaquin was there well I think you see that in our performances because we're so connected like when he was like my security blanket and I was his and when we were together we just we had more confidence mm-hmm what's your recollection of the Oscar night um the Oscar night you know I have to say sitting there I think about it now - it was a you know a while ago and I was 29 years old and that was just a lot first time I was 29 years old you know and I think it's sort of equal parts you're sitting there going please don't call my name please are coming in and then equal parts please call my name please call my name and this that ambivalence like you're you're just torn and then the pressure of like what do you say that you know what do you say that encapsulates your life mm-hmm that all the people you want to thank you know and there's no time and and what really matters you know the people you play and then the the opportunity to get to tell stories in this life and what a what a privilege that is storyteller in this world where did the SAG Award in the Oscar live oh they're right there in my front room next to some macaroni art and the oscar has a little Christmas hat it wears it has a little tuxedo that it you know there's like little things you can flip over a wine bottle oh that's great the next one I want to talk about I like people hold it - okay if you come in my house I'll let people hold I said I might have one rule you have to give a speech okay that encapsulates everything that that you mean and you what matters to you in this life just think about now you know what it's like we're not me name the time I'm there okay the next one I want to ask you about is the movie that I think a lot of people didn't see because it kind of came and win and no one seemed to care rendition which I thought was really good and the thing I liked about it for you is that you got to work with Meryl Streep which must have been talked about frightening I'm sure right yeah thank you she was tough she was typing out and I think you know you have these surreal moments over and over again and you have to just kind of power through them because you're not allowed to go oh my god you're Meryl Streep and I had to have had like was doing this performance where I'm like dramatically screaming I'm like wonder what she's thinking I wonder if she thinks that was too big but I can do it again but she was so great and lovely and just really complimentary and nice it was yeah but it was a movie about you know the u.s. policy on torture and I think probably the world wasn't ready to see that kind of thing what I find really interesting is I was looking through the awards that you've won and in 2008 and 2009 you were the People's Choice Award winner for favorite female movie star and yet you've spoken a lot about how those years you felt not very satisfied professionally you didn't feel like you were getting the stuff that you wanted but yet you were the People's Choice that must have been a strange time were you yeah I mean I wouldn't characterize that whole time period is just void I think you know I really enjoyed some movies I did for Christmases was so fun working with Vince Vaughn and he's literally the funniest person I've ever met my entire life and you know sometimes I've learned through you know meeting fans and that some of the comedies have such a profound impact than the dramas people watch them in hospitals they watch them in holidays they connect family they they lift you up when you feel like crap you know everybody has a favorite movie or two favorite movies and I guarantee your favorite movie when you're feeling really crappy isn't a serious war drama it's like something that makes you feel like in and I'm lucky to have those in my in my life and and to provide some respite for people from their lives you know but then yeah I mean I yeah I really enjoyed making you know some of those movies for sure and I loved you know Water for Elephants was a really fun experience for me too um I got to spend five months circus training with an al I was like this is this gotta be a joke yeah but I get to go everyday and hang out with an elephant got a circus school hey and I'm pay and they're in there and then they pay me right that's crazy that was a really exciting job one that I think is very underrated is how do you know the one with Jim Brooks that you did with Paul Rudd and I know the title do you guys didn't have a title until like two months before that now and that's not a good just suck that title I know it's not the movies better than the title yeah but Jim Brooks that's a unique experience to work with him I'm sure yeah I mean Jim Brooks I met him right after the Oscar and he said I'm writing a movie for you and I was like you are I'm you know in broadcast news is I mean Holly hunters performance in that movie is a movie that made me want to be an actor um so I was so excited and probably a year and a half later he said I have a script and it took us about two years to make that movie mmm about a year of casting and about a year of shooting mmm and it was long it was a long process yeah I want to talk about mud it's not a lead role for you but I just think it's such a fascinating film and such an interesting choice for you to do that one what was it about that that you said I've got to be a part of it even though it's not the lead of the film yeah well I was getting a lot of feedback from people that that directors didn't want to offer me things I wasn't the lead and I just I was kind of like wonder where that is and they said well you haven't really done anything of a lot of movies so you know this came along and I'd seen Jeff Nichols two other work shotguns stories and take shelter and I just think he's such an interesting creative soulful guy and he is writing stories about where I grew up and you know down in the deep south and out in the sticks people don't have a lot to do kids run around and play around in junkyards and creeks and and it was a movie about that so I was really excited to to be part of it and as I recall so much of your stuff was in that very small tight motel room not what was that like did it not luxurious but fun you know it's good to get down to basics with people and kind of strip away all the artifice all the hair and the makeup and all the cute outfits everything and it's like just be an act or get back into the work you know where's this person from what happened her um the crazy story about that was I got in a car accident two weeks before the movie started yeah so I have a black eye in the movie it's actually a real black honey and Jeff called me right after the car accident I was like hit I was jogging and I was hit by car oh it's just terrible it was terrible um and he called me about a week later and he said are you gonna be able to do the movie I totally understand I was like no I think I have to do the movie and so he wrote it into the character that she had been thrown down the stairs by her ex-husband and that's why mine went after him and killed him Wow oh my god that's crazy it actually added yeah so we have to end with my favorite movie of the year wild which I hope you all have seen and this is a film that you and your production company partner Bruna Papandrea produced as well as you starring in it and you had the good fortune and I'd love to know how this all happened of having Cheryl Strayed send you the book before it was ever released so that you could take a look at it thank goodness she did that yeah thank God she it was interesting because it was kind of a time where I was feeling you know we spoke about it like just lost as an artist as an actor the you know I started noticing probably around the writers strike and 2008-2009 when all the DVDs went away and we went to you know direct to iTunes and all that stuff just there was about 1/3 less parts you know now there's you know where there were 10 parts for women during the year now there were like 6 and I saw all these great actresses clamoring to be the girlfriend in a big dumb comedy and I thought this this is not what doesn't know what people want to see people want to see I mean I want to see interesting dynamic complex women and I know my I want my daughter to see that you know I grew up watching Norma Rae and and and Sigourney Weaver and working girl and you know Holly Hunter in raising Arizona and everything else you know and I I was like I can't stomach this anymore I've got I was thinking about starting a production company I was like I got to do this like I don't wanna be part of the problem I want to be part of the solution I hate when people say stuff and then I don't do anything about it drives me bananas and so I at the same time that same kind of a couple months Cheryl sent me the manuscript for her book and my agent said you know I don't have to her gonna be interest in this it sounds really hard you know she walked a thousand miles and she's depressed cuz her mom died and I said that's actually really cool and I read it in 48 hours I called my agent at midnight that night and I said I've got to talk to this woman I don't know who she is but I need to talk to her and so I called her 8 o'clock the next morning on Monday morning Cole I don't know her and I said I don't know who you are but I feel like I went on that journey with you and I have to hug you and this is probably one of the best books I've ever read in my entire life and so I kind of told her why I wanted to make it into a movie and why I was gonna make it different than other like female journey to discovery movies that were all like perfect clothes and you know sparkly sunsets and and always getting the guy and I said you know I just think it's so important for not just for women but for men too so this is a great story of hope they you know she starts with nothing and she ends with nothing but it's a happy ending mmm and that was profound to me and so was Sheryl like well I've already sent it to five other people to me or were you the like the chosen one I was likely she had only sent it to me so she had a list she was gonna hit actresses and she picked me first because she thought we kind of I said why did you pick me and she said well I knew you were from somewhere and that was important to me because she grew up in the middle of nowhere and she said and I think we kind of look alike cuz we kind of do look alike and she said I'm also and you don't know it from the book but I'm really really funny and she is I come to find out she's actually really funny there's a great sense of humor let's talk about the pack because from what I understand that was quite a heavy like you were going for realism there with that backpack well I was not oh I was point from movie fake star load peanuts yes dry cleaner um you know stuff and newspaper stuffed in there and then Cheryl was sitting on set Cheryl is there every single day and she leaned over Janelle mark is she's like the pack doesn't look having enough mhmmm and so he came over to music what sends it back he's french-canadian and I said newspaper or something he said okay we need to other backpack and we need the one that's heavy with all the equipment in it I said yeah but I have to walk I have to walk all day with this on my back and you're not he doesn't cut he just shoots digital so there's no putting it down there's no breaks there's no sitting down there's no like there's no going to the bathroom hi bananas and there's no other actors to cut to right you know when the other actor that you can just kind of relax a little bit and take off the pack and stretch a little bit no there was nothing there was a little the front of me and the back of me so and nobody and sit and he just walked away and he was like okay action and that was it for the rest of the movie he was he really challenged me and I'm so appreciative of everything he pushed me to do he was like I want you wear no makeup and I was like well but just like a little private no make that none I love your face I just want to see this woman stripped of everything I want to I want to feel like she's lost everything and I was like okay but that's gonna me off its got like oh and he made me be brave and may he made me do it and I'm so appreciative to him pushing me outside my comfort zone and and because I feel like you would have seen it and it would have been fake and it and I and after a while it started to feel like you know I was in a documentary about Cheryl Strayed life because I couldn't stop there's so many magical moments in wild and the one that I'm never gonna forget is that little boy who sings you the song at the end and I'm sure I just wrecked me in the best possible way and I'm sure it's very hard when you're dealing with an actor that young that you're never gonna get it it's not like a seamless on the day as it is edited together but what was that like for you on that actual day of shooting and was it did he did he deliver each time or was it hard kid was so intense and he knew his parts his name is Evan O'Toole he's incredible I had these beautiful little blue eyes and this curly hair and I was raining and you know he just kept saying I'm hungry and and then said we'd give him a granola bar and you be like okay and then not and then we say okay can you sing the song and even I he just sang so beautifully from his heart you know remember the Red River Valley and he and when he started saying everybody on the crew started crying because if his he took it so seriously as John Mark had him like on the day changed the song he said I want you to learn a new song why he wanted to try a Nirvana song to have him sing a serve on a song which by the way I hope one day people get to see it cuz that wrecked me too it was so beautiful he sings all apologies Oh wonderful so beautiful oh my god it was crazy but you know having Cheryl's sort of reflect on her journey and doing that the thing that the editing that jean-marc did where he jumps back and forth to her looking at these beautiful vistas and remembering her mother and everything her mother will never see again it'll mark used to say I want you to look at this and remember that your mother will never see this again um and seeing it through this beautiful little boy's eyes and seeing how hurt he is and then he has problems too and that we're all broken you know I've had more people come up to me and say I feel less broken it's all the movie and you men women older people younger kids like I just feel less alone and that's all we set out to do you know and that's the most profound thing you know yeah Cheryl always says the the most profound thing you can do as an artist is build that sacred bridge the audience it's nothing can ever take that away mmm once you've done it it's there forever you're still so if there was the happiest surprise for me as someone who's obsessed with the Oscars it was the fact that not only of course did you get nominated because duh but that laura dern did too because she hadn't gotten any nomination so I was really happy for that but one thing that you and I were talking about is before we came on which i think is kind of weird and troubling is if you look at and this happens every year I feel like you look at the movies that are up for all the big ones like Best Director and Best Picture they completely line up with the Best Actor category so Eddie Redmayne theory everything Benedict Cumberbatch imitation game Michael Keaton Birdman Steve Carell Foxcatcher Bradley Cooper American sniper all of the movies that dominate the overall awards race are male leads and that you guys have this movie which is the best movie of the year you have two acting nominations and yet it didn't get in the major categories what's going on there is I you know I don't know and I keep getting asked this a lot because you know we're like 93 on Rotten Tomatoes our movies made more money than Birdman theory of everything and boyhood Nightcrawler I mean it's it's it's sets of these a number two or three specialty film of the year which is so exciting and it's clear the audience is really they they want this movie and that's the big message it's it's not about awards it's really about let's make more of these movies that are hopeful and give people you know a sense of why we're here on earth like where are we here to shoot people and what I think people want to see people's real life struggles and you know and I think it is it's at a hurdle we have to get over like there's not more female lead movies that are considered part of the conversation and we are close we got really close right we're gonna keep trying you know that's the bottom line we actually subscribe and I want everybody to keep writing these stories and keep telling your stories it's just like Cheryl said that maybe everybody's life is precious sacred in a revocable and everyone's story deserves to be told and and hopefully this will inspire so many more people to tell their stories I like that ok with the four minutes that we have left we're going to do a speed round of the five great audience questions that we got from you guys and you guys have the worst handwriting it's I can't I can hardly read this well actually this guy's okay Steve you're okay you're okay Steve wants to know how do you choose your projects how hard do you have to work to find a script that you want to do it's really hard it's really hard and then once you find the script again you know there's not that many great roles for actresses so particularly I'm kind of bridging the gap to between you know younger thirties and then moving on to the moms because there's kind of a bridge there there's like a weird fallow period where there's people don't know what to do with women that age you know you're not a mom what are you you're not a mom but you're not 29 it's really confusing I'm just trying to figure out kind of that that in-between thing and and I'm working on developing a lot of stuff a lot of bestsellers and books are actually women stories so that's been a really great fertile place to find you know inspiration and get manuscripts and I've been I have probably probably had 16 projects now there are all female leads and we should mention that you've produced gone girl yeah so my friend Gillian wrote that book and yeah I'm just like so in awe of everything that she was able to do with your help that's amazing yeah okay this is from I'm hoping I'm gonna say it right Karolina hi Karolina this is a great question first of all what I don't understand it's a this questions for Rhys little spoon yeah could somebody asked me what my rap name is going off what I just said about gone girl when did you first decide to venture into producing do you find that allows you more creative freedom I think it probably does yeah yeah and it you know I get to be an authorial on what I know which is women because I am a woman and I will go into studios and you know I went through a lot of meetings in my late 20s and early 30s talking about like sitting with studio heads and studio executives going well that makes her unlikable like if she sleeps with somebody's not her husband that's really unlikable and you know if she if she uses drugs I mean that's really like there's no coming back no one will ever like her at the end of the movie so I decided like you know to come out at a different approach you know and be really part of the development process it's been helpful because I can go into a room and say no no actually women do cheat on their husbands too and they're actually they actually are redeemable people they do make you know amends for it and they say sorry and maybe there you know I'm not perfect but there's some people are just not perfect in this world you know and there's a lot of them and I you know I'm one of them so I think people actually want to see themselves and I think you know storytelling has changed too that people used to want to see more artifice I feel like and people are wanting they want real you know we have so much in our lives but it's so nice to see the truth mmm and that's why so I responded to show strange she just told the truth not because it certainly didn't make her look good it's just but it made her feel free mmm here's a great follow up and Becky Dennis you have impeccable handwriting but it's gorgeous it's gorgeous beautiful Becky says do you find it a challenge balancing producing and acting do you have advice for aspiring actor producers on how to juggle the two goals in harmony and which to focus more on if the first love is acting that's a really good question because yeah it would be impossible if I didn't have my producing partner so we do a lot of we do all the development together but whatever you know when I get on set I have to be an actress that's it and I can't you know occasionally Bruna would bring me in and say look we need to get we need to work on something three days from now and we have to get this crane and I need you to call the studio but for the most part she did all that heavy lifting so it's really important that some of you trust you have the same kind of taste you know their taste level has to be the same places you and you have to kind of like similar things but definitely I have to take off the producer hat when I'm actually on set so that's a good question and then Kat wants to know who have you not worked with yet that you'd like to um Julianne Moore I would love to do something that Julianne Moore um what could you do with her so much and what can she not do she's amazing Jessica Chastain and I think his incredibly talented Viola Davis dyno work with her Kerry Washington and I have been tried trying to find something for years and years but again it's hard a lot of women aren't usually in movies together but I'm going to change that I can't think of a better note to end on than that reese witherspoon thank you so much for your time and thank you [Applause]

Channel: SAG-AFTRA Foundation

Views: 26,786

Rating: 4.9210525 out of 5

Keywords: SAG Foundation, SAG-AFTRA Foundation, Acting, Actors, Wild, Walk the line, Sweet Home Alabama, Hot Pursuit, This Means War, Cruel Intentions, Election, Conversations, legally blonde, big little lies, home again, Q&A, Interview, Career, Retrospective

Id: w0oxj3uavlA

Length: 57min 12sec (3432 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 15 2017