The 2014 movie that terrified Reese Witherspoon: “I was having panic attacks for three weeks”
The transition from being a child star to a legitimate adult actor is not one that is easy to pull off, but Reese Witherspoon managed to nail the opportunity.
Although she had first been celebrated for a breakthrough performance in Man in the Moon, Witherspoon proved by the end of the 1990s that she wouldn’t be looking for any ‘safe’ roles; between the dark comedy Freeway, the ruthless satire Election, and the transgressive erotic thriller Cruel Intentions, she had more than proved herself as a legitimate actor.
Witherspoon managed to win out over her competitors to land the lead role in Legally Blonde, and she won the Academy Award for ‘Best Actress’ for her performance in Walk the Line as June Carter, but had to dodge criticism that she was more of a celebrity than she was an actor.
Since she had seemingly won her Oscar in a year where the competition was light, she was accused of being an unjust winner; some took issue with the fact that she primarily starred in romantic comedies, many of which had regressive depictions of gender stereotypes, while her peers criticised her for selling out.
It was as these criticisms had started to sting that Witherspoon signed on to star in Wild, a biopic of Cheryl Strayed, who took an impromptu hiking trip across the country after the death of her mother from cancer, a role far grittier than Witherspoon had played in quite some time, as director Jean-Marc Vallee was renowned for his precision and realism.
The actor revealed to Interview magazine that the role was particularly challenging because it required her to get into the headspace of a real person: “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.”
While Witherspoon worried that the shoot would be “boring”, Wild was a life-affirming drama based on an inspiring true story that served as a profound meditation on grief, trauma, and perseverance, which, though impeccably directed, wouldn’t have worked if the film didn’t have a captivating performance at its centre.
Rightfully, Witherspoon earned an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Actress’, losing out to Julianne Moore for the merely adequate Still Alice, which was clearly an opportunity to award her for her entire body of work, as she had never won before, but if it were a ceremony that was entirely based on merit, Moore would have already won an Oscar for Far From Heaven, and Witherspoon would have earned it for Wild.
Wild seemed to signify a change-of-pace for the actor, but she has fallen down the ‘TV rabbit hole’ with roles in everything from Little Fires Everywhere to The Morning Show, which epitomises the excess of the streaming era. Wild isn’t just the best role of her career, but it might end up being her last truly great one on the big screen.
