| Reese Witherspoon Interview, Penelope |
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| Sunday, 09 March 2008 | |
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Here’s what the multi-talented Reese Witherspoon had to tell us:
Q: Was this the first indie film your company has done?
Reese Witherspoon: This is the first independent film. We produced ‘Legally Blonde 2’ and then this was the first film that we found the script, found the director, and did all the heavy lifting.
Q: What was it about this that galvanized you into doing it?
Reese Witherspoon: I read the script. My producing partner Jennifer Simpson brought me the script about four years ago. She had been working in a different company, she’d found the script, and she loved it. It was a script that other people had read and there were a lot of ideas about how to make it. People tossed around making it an animated movie. People couldn’t figure out what to do with it. When she brought it to me I just thought it was great. It was perfect for our company because at the center it was a wonderful, fantastic, cinematic movie. At the center it also had a really great female character who was strong, ambitious, but definitely had a journey to go through to get to the place where she would find herself.
Q: Did you ever think about playing that character yourself?
Reese Witherspoon: Yeah, I actually did. I thought about it but I got busy with other commitments and the movie had to go forward. We decided to cast it but I always knew I wanted to be in it in some capacity. It was kind of fun for me to get to play a smaller character and get to be a broad.
Q: Speaking of that, what did you have to do to develop that character? Was she sort of a biker chic with fun hair or did you just bring that?
Reese Witherspoon: I found somebody I thought was sort of like her and I just kind of mimicked her. It was fun, yeah. I got to run around the streets of London on a Vespa. I got to wear the funny hair, just be ballsy, and funny.
Q: You don’t get a chance very often to play a supporting role. Is this appealing to you now to come in and do some supporting things and not have to be the star and carry the weight of an entire movie on your shoulders?
Reese Witherspoon: Yeah, I carried the weight in other ways. [Laughs] Like, how are we going to get distribution and that kind of thing? It’s fun, it’s sort of very freeing to play a supporting character. Those are the kind of parts I came up playing, so it was kind of nice to return to that. I love those kinds of characters. Like Barbara Stanwyck, you don’t know if she’s going to kiss you or stab you in the neck. I love those kinds of characters.
Q: Speaking of distribution, did you do the rounds at the studios?
Reese Witherspoon: We did the film festival in Toronto and sold the film. It’s been an interesting journey of finding the exact, right partner. I feel like we finally found the right situation. We really believe in this movie, we wanted it to come out the right way, and we didn’t want to compromise a lot. We found a partner that was just…
Q: How tough was it to try and get a deal on a movie like this?
Reese Witherspoon: Not too bad. People loved the film at the Toronto Film Festival, so we got a great response, so that helps. Everybody who sees it just loves it and wants to bring their kids to it.
Q: When it opens will you have national distribution or international?
Reese Witherspoon: National and international. It opened in the UK already so there are different territories opening all over the world.
Q: We heard there were some mishaps on the Vespa when you were actually filming on it?
Reese Witherspoon: [Laughs] Yeah, it’s because I’m height challenged. My feet wouldn’t touch the ground on the Vespa. They tried to lower it as low as they possibly could and my feet still couldn’t touch the ground on the Vespa. We had to put it on a rig. Christina [Ricci] is pretty short too and she had to sit on the back. So we had to rig it up, and do it good old movie style.
Q: Since you shot in London, what about the choice of setting it in sort of a non-descript anywhere in the world with accents that make sense. Sometimes specificity can help when you have a very specific location.
Reese Witherspoon: I think because it was such a magical fairy tale we wanted it to be timeless. I think our costumes are very timeless. We wanted it to seem like a created imaginary world to add to the fantasy element.
Q: One of the things that happens dramatically is that we do want to see Christina’s character as Christina by the end. You are also trying to say that she’s okay with the big nose. Was it hard to figure out exactly how to pull that off?
Reese Witherspoon: Yeah, we were very particular with the editing in the script about her not having a miraculous change. Her acceptance comes before her physical change comes, so really she has to accept herself first, who she is and what is great about herself, before her body physically changes. She looks so darn cute with the nose, for a second we were like ‘Maybe we shouldn’t get rid of the nose. Maybe everybody else should change.’ There was a lot of deliberation about that moment.
Q: Can you talk about casting Christina?
Reese Witherspoon: She was my first choice. I was so excited, it’s great when you have this hot script in your hand, and you’ve got this great character. You are like ‘Ooo, my choices!’ so Christina was my first choice. We were lucky when we sent her the script. She and I sat down for lunch and I thought ‘She is not going to want to do this.’ Here is this weird pig face. I think some people around her were thinking she didn’t want to do it, she just came in and was like ‘No, I’m excited! I want to do this. I want to wear this pig face, I think it’s great, and it’s awesome.’ I was like ‘Are you sure?’ and she just was fearless. That is what I have always loved about Christina, she has a real intelligence to her work. She always plays a very intelligent woman, also very sharp, very witty, and she’s always just been great. We grew up auditioning together. We had known each other for years from sitting in the waiting room, waiting to get cast, or not cast in movies. We made a friendship. It was great to finally have that collaboration we had talked about for so many years.
Q: What do you guys have in common as actresses and how do you differ?
Reese Witherspoon: Losing a lot of parts to other actresses [laughs] and being really grumpy, and miserable about it. No, I think we have a similar sensibility. She is younger than I am. In ‘The Opposite of Sex’ she’s got this great force of nature about her. You do want to wrap your arms around her and love her, that’s why I’m so excited about this film. I do think it’s an opportunity for audiences to really embrace her. She’s great and she’s got great taste too.
Q: What about James McAvoy?
Reese Witherspoon: James, we were just lucky to get James. The casting director suggested him and at the time I didn’t know who he was. Christina had seen some of his work and she was a big champion of his. So was Jennifer Simpson, my producing partner. I watched some of his stuff and thought he was great. Of course he has become this big movie star now. I tease him and say ‘I got you when you were cheap.’ [Laughs] That’s not going to happen again, I’ll never get him again. He’s so great and I’m so happy for him to be having all this success. He’s really versatile. You can believe him as a doctor, but also as a super spy. He’s just wonderful.
Q: Can you talk a little bit about producing? What is it that you love about it? So many actors say they want to produce and then they do one movie and that’s it, they never go back.
Reese Witherspoon: It’s a natural progression I think. I’ve been on sets for 15 years now. Just being a part of the filmmaking process you absorb so much that you don’t even realize you are looking at -- whether it is lighting, or shot composition, or casting. You realize how important every element is, so it’s kind of been a natural progression for me. I did a lot of development and script work. That has been very helpful for me with the production company, sort of learning about what makes a script work or not work. This actual experience of being in physical production was exciting. We would run up against problems. We needed to do 30 close ups in one day and we had 5 hours of daylight. The sun went down and how are we going to do it? I was like ‘Oh, I remember on this movie that we put it on the dolly and we just kept sliding down the line and getting close ups.’ And that’s exciting for me and it was educational too. I got to learn a lot about editing and music, just things I don’t normally get to touch. They don’t let the actors in those rooms.
Q: What kind of character do you play in ‘Four Christmases’?
Reese Witherspoon: I play Kate Kincaid, a woman who is in a relationship with a man who, we both mutually agree we don’t want to see our families. Every Christmas we travel and we have a very particular theology about relationships and life that we are never going to get married, we’re never going to have children, but we like our life. Through a course of events we have to go home. Both of our parents are divorced so we have to go to four Christmases in one day.
Q: No matter what the script is, Vince Vaughn always brings improvisation to it? How was that?
Reese Witherspoon: It’s actually been great. He’s a wonderful collaborator. He’s inspiring and he’s so open. I was scared to death the first day. I was like ‘Oh no! He’s going to say a million things and I’m not going to know what to say back.’ The good news is we had been working on it for five months in a room. I had gotten used to his personality and how fast his mind works. His mind literally works so fast. I said to him ‘People can’t talk as fast as you think.’ You can’t keep up with him. I feel like I’ve been in Vince Vaughn training. [Laughs] Now by the end, he says one thing and I’m like ‘Blah, blah, blah. Shut up, just stop talking, you never shut up.’
Q: Did you ever get him? Were you ever like ‘Yes. That was the greatest slam I could ever say.’?
Reese Witherspoon: I got him a couple of times. I have to say it’s like a mental bench mark for me. I was like ‘Yes! I got him!’ [Laughs] Probably only twice. He gets me six times, and I get him twice.
Q: Does it ever get blue and R-rated or is it a family friendly movie?
Reese Witherspoon: Yeah, have you met him? [Laughs] Sometimes I have to go home and call my brother and say ‘What is a Connecticut Waffle?’ I’m sorry, I still don’t know what it is, so I’m sorry if I have offended anybody. Literally, it will be like… I don’t even know. It’s words I’ve never heard of.
Q: He’s is height challenged in that he’s 6 foot 10 or something. Were there a lot of scenes where you guys were sitting down? Did you ever have a situation where you were face to face, or face to belly button?
Reese Witherspoon: It really is like the top of my head hits his armpit maybe. I drag my apple box around. I have an apple box, it’s Reese’s apple box, and I have a platform, and an apple box, and I just drag it with me and stand on it next to him.
Q: Are these sentimental things to you that you bring on every movie? Reese Witherspoon: No, but I should invest in some the next time I do a Vince Vaughn movie. Page 2: Reese Witherspoon, Interview Penelope
    
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