31 Little Known Facts About Reese Witherspoon You Never Knew

Reese Witherspoon has been taking the Hollywood for a ride for almost two decades now, and she doesn’t seem to slow down even a bit. In fact, it’s not just her acting career, as her talents are really beyond camera. Just her name reminds us at least a dozen different images from her versatile roles that people adore till date. Here are a few important things about the actress that will make you love her more.

1. During the filming of “Wild,” she was not allowed to read the instruction manual to the tent or the stove, by director Jean-Marc Vallée, leading to all the frustration on-screen being genuine.
2. In preparation for her role as Elle Woods in “Legally Blonde,” she spent two weeks with sorority girls, analyzing their behavior, as she did not want to portray a stereotypical airhead sorority image.
3. According to the DVD commentary, she enjoyed her time with sorority girls and learned a lot about them. She also attended law school for a single day and keenly observed women shopping from the café at Neiman Marcus.
4. Her performance as Tracy Flick in the 1999 movie “Election,” was voted as the 45th Greatest Movie Performances of All Time by Premiere Magazine. However, she originally wanted to play Tammy Metzler.
5. She developed a very codependent relationship with her co-star Joaquin Phoenix,” on the sets of “Walk the Line,” to the extent of making a secret pact, in which if one of them left the project, the other would also leave.
6. For the movie “Inherent Vice,” it took her only four days to film all her scenes. Director Paul Thomas Anderson and her co-star Joaquin Phoenix loved working with her, and decided to change the story to have her character appear for some more time.
7. However, Reese did not think it was a good idea for the movie as well as her character of Deputy D.A. Penny Kimball, and convinced the other two also. Director Anderson, though he wanted to extend her character in the movie, agreed to her.
8. During the filming of the dinner sequence in the “Four Christmases,” she was accidentally hit in the face with a ceramic plate, and had to have five stitches. The shooting was delayed by three days due to her injury.
9. It was reported that while filming some scenes and also in certain rehearsals for the movie “Just Like Heaven,” her co-star Mark Ruffalo wore an earpiece to receive his lines from her, whenever she was not on the sets.
10. While shooting the movie “Wild” director Jean-Marc Vallée had all the mirrors on the set covered, just so Witherspoon could not see herself during filming.
11. As per the contract of her movie “Legally Blonde” Witherspoon had kept all the costumes of her character Elle Woods, after the filming was completed.
12. Even for the “Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde,” she kept all the designer clothing her character wore in the movie, along with sixty-three different pairs of designer shoes made out of man-made materials.
13. For the famous scene of Johnny Cash’s performance of “I Got Stripes” in “Walk the Line,” her co-star Joaquin Phoenix glares at her for a long period on-stage, in an effort to make her as uncomfortable as possible, but she just rolled her eyes and continued performing the song.
14. It was reported that five months before the release of the book “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail,” she received a galley-form book personally from Cheryl Strayed. Witherspoon immediately acquired the rights, claiming it to be the perfect launch pad for her own production label.
15. She became close friends with Nicole Kidman, during the filming of the first season of “Big Little Lies,” to the extent that she even bought the residence next to Kidman’s house in her hometown of Nashville.
16. She was dating Ryan Phillippe, while filming the movie “Cruel Intentions.” Initially, Columbia Pictures had Katie Holmes roped in for the character of Annette, but director Roger Kumble who felt Holmes did not have enough strength for the character, asked Phillippe to take Reese for dinner. All of them got drunk, and Kumble reportedly went down on his knees to beg her to accept the role.
17. According to the “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail” book’s author Cheryl Strayed, if there was any actress who could portray the character of Cheryl, it was Reese Witherspoon. The author personally requested Reese to star in the movie.
18. In the film “Walk the Line,” she and her co-star Joaquin Phoenix is said to have performed all the songs by themselves, without being dubbed. She reportedly took singing lessons for six months before the filming commenced and also learned to play auto-harp from scratch.
19. Before the commencement of filming of “Mud,” she met with an accident, an all the bruises and cuts that her character sports, are real. Director Jeff Nichols felt that the injury suited her character and decided not to wait until she healed.
20. In an effort to give her best as a professional softball athlete in “How Do You Know,” she practiced the sport for two to three hours every day for months, although there is only around 20 seconds of her playing in the movie.
21. In the movie “Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde,” it was reported that the idea of one million dog march was actually hers. She suggested it to the director, who liked it and included it in the script.
22. During the filming of “Wild,” she was not at all comfortable in doing the sex scenes, especially the one with two guys in the alley. She even called Cheryl Strayed to complain about the scene.
23. According to her, even the drug scenes were not as difficult as the sex scenes, and claimed that she had hired a hypnotist to help quell her nerves, before shooting any sex scene.
24. She and her “Big Little Lies” co-star Nicole Kidman, reportedly obtained the rights of an adaptation of “Truly Madly Guilty”, which is also a novel by Liane Moriarty, after their “BLL” collaboration.
25. It was reported that during the filming of “The Good Lie,” she was arrested for disorderly conduct. The movie was billed as a Reese Witherspoon film, although she had only a supporting role.
26. The famous scene from “Cruel Intentions,” in which her character Annette slaps Sebastian, was totally unscripted, and she actually slapped her co-star Ryan Phillippe unexpectedly, who threw up after going behind the scene. Director Roger Kumble felt it to be genuine and left the scene in the final cut of the movie.
27. During the filming of “Devil’s Knot,” she was eight months pregnant with her third child. In the movie, her son Stevie sings the Elvis Presley song “That’s All Right,” which was the same song that she was featured singing in her first movie “The Man in the Moon.”
28. Before the filming of “Vanity Fair” commenced, director Mira Nair jokingly asked her to get pregnant for the role of Becky Sharp, as she felt Reese was too thin. However, Witherspoon was indeed pregnant and director was too delighted.
29. She had very unpleasant time filming the sequel “Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde,” following which she decided not to star in any sequel again. Ether her films did not have sequels under her respect, or if there was a sequel, her character was left out altogether.
30. In preparation for her role Cecily in “The Importance of Being Earnest,” she was learning her English accent, while Ryan Phillippe, her ex-husband was developing his Scottish accent for “Gosford Park.” In the end, their daughter Ava picked up both the accents faster.
31. Reese Witherspoon Net Worth: $150 Million