Reese Witherspoon is starring in Wild, which is based on Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. If you haven’t read it, it’s about a woman who goes on a journey of self-discovery following her mother’s death. It can be quite a deep film at times, and it includes some more intense sex scenes that Reese wanted to be totally real and raw because she’s a Very Serious Actress.
From Vogue:
“When people underestimate me, it’s actually a comfortable place for me,” she says. “ ‘Oh, that’s what you think I am; well, no, I’m not.’ I’m a complex human being. I have many different shades.”
The film is unflinching in its portrayal of the bottom Strayed hit after the death of her mother, dabbling with heroin and embarking on a string of one-night stands as if trying to awaken her grief-numbed senses. Witherspoon knew no studio would let her go there. “I just didn’t want to hear, ‘Oh, we don’t want to see Reese have sex. . . . Oh, can we not have any profanity?’ ” says Witherspoon. “I wanted it to be truthful, I wanted it to be raw, I wanted it to be real.”
Well, okay. Apparently Reese hired a hypnotist to help her lose herself during her sex scenes, which… I don’t really get, but whatever floats your boat.
