When Reese Witherspoon was young, her grandmother impressed upon her the importance of self-respect and staying strong - valuable lessons that have helped to make her one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actresses. Now, as global ambassador for Avon cosmetics, she wants to help other women harness their inner strength to escape the trap of domestic violence
The first time I find myself face to face with Reese Witherspoon we are at the Houses of Parliament on a sunny but crisply cold morning. Everyone is swathed in their winter wardrobes, apart from Reese, who is wearing an exquisite – but
bone-chillingly sleeveless – Roland Mouret dress and traversing the flagstones of Westminster Hall in spiky Martin Margiela heels.
It’s the day when the Prime Minister will later, rather embarrassingly, confuse Reese with her friend and fellow actress Renée Zellweger. But actually, when you’ve witnessed full-on Hollywood glamour teleported into the hub of British politics, you can understand why Gordon Brown found himself momentarily flummoxed. It’s not so much that Reese and Renée are both petite and blonde and have names beginning with R; more that Reese and the PM occupy parallel universes. He’s far too dour and serious to cross the threshold into her glitzy world, which begs the question, why is she, as one of the most successful Hollywood actresses of her generation, so eager to dip an immaculately pedicured toe into his?
Now 33, Reese made her name as ditzy Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, but cemented her acting credentials five years ago with her Oscar-winning performance in Walk the Line. Her role as June Carter Cash, wife of the country music legend Johnny, catapulted her to the top of the Hollywood pay league, outstripping Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz, and she commands a reputed $20 million (£12 million) a film.
Like many Hollywood A-listers, she is keen to ‘give back’. Two years ago she became global ambassador for Avon, and it is in this capacity that she is in London, to raise awareness for a new campaign the company is launching with the domestic violence charity Refuge.
In a Westminster committee room, she listens transfixed as Wendy Turner Webster – the television presenter and younger sister of Anthea Turner – speaks about her violent first marriage. It’s a harrowing and sadly all too familiar tale. In her early 20s, Wendy, now 42, spent five years married to a man who beat her and made her feel worthless. She found it difficult to leave him because she felt trapped. As Wendy (who today is thankfully happily remarried with two children) recalls how it felt to be stripped of dignity and confidence, the pained sympathy on Reese’s face is evident.
‘I had tears in my eyes,’ she tells me afterwards. ‘And do you know what really moved me? It was that psychological component – the way that having someone tear down your self-esteem can make you feel immobilised.’
Wendy’s story, Reese says, prompted memories of a friend from her past, who had an abusive boyfriend. ‘He hit her and threatened her life many times. It went on for about two years. I had no idea of what was happening between them until she confided in me. She ended up living with me for a few months – we were only about 20 at the time. She had to move and change her telephone numbers and it was hard. I remember thinking, how can this be happening to this girl who is articulate and educated? I didn’t understand why she hadn’t just left him sooner. And it was only hearing Wendy speaking that reminded me of that.’
‘I don’t have a set of rules about what kind of movies I make, but I am definitely drawn to women who are strong’
We are sitting now in the more familiar surroundings, for Reese at least, of a sumptuous hotel suite. Although she is tiny – 5ft 2in tall – with delicate, doll-like features, she exudes no sense of fragility. Deft and assertive, it is hard to imagine her ever suffering the same crisis of confidence as either Wendy or her own long-ago friend.
Indeed, if you examine many of the women she has portrayed – from Elle Woods, who chases her intellectual snob of a boyfriend to Harvard and discovers she has a bigger brain than he has, to the fiery but grounded June Carter Cash – you quickly identify a common strand of female empowerment. ‘I don’t have a set of rules about what kind of movies I make, but I am definitely drawn to women who are strong,’ she says.
Reese, who was born Laura Jean Reese Witherspoon (Reese being her mother’s maiden name), grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, where her father John is an ear, nose and throat surgeon and her mother Betty is a professor of nursing. At her elite private girls’ school she proved as academically able as her parents, and at home, life for both herself and her elder brother John was privileged and comfortable. She remembers her paternal grandmother, a teacher, being an enormous influence.
In her day, girls could only go to certain colleges, where they were trained to be teachers or nurses, so she urged me to get a good education. She would say, “You can be whatever you want to be.” She taught me to have strength and self-respect.’
Reese’s parents, too, were never anything less than proud, ‘whether I was making my bed or making a movie’. So it is curious that, even today, Reese admits to a fear of being ‘underestimated. I’ve always had the need to prove myself,’ she says. She believes it has nothing to do with her upbringing and everything to do with being a Southern gal. ‘Growing up, a lot of my girlfriends’ ambitions were to get married and be homemakers. And that is completely wonderful for them – it was just never my ambition.’
Reese dabbled with acting lessons as a child, but her earliest aspirations were not for a show business career. ‘I can remember standing up in third grade [aged eight] and saying that I wanted to be the first female president of the United States. I wanted to change the world.’
When she was 12, Reese appeared in a local television commercial, and two years later, when she heard that a film called The Man in the Moon was to be shot locally, she went along with some friends to audition as an extra. The directors plucked her from the melee and cast her in the lead role. Reese seized her chance, delivering a highly acclaimed performance.
By the age of 18 she had eight movies under her belt, but she also finished her schooling and secured a place at Stanford University to read English. A year into her studies, however, she found herself going against her grandmother’s advice when offered a part alongside Paul Newman in the thriller Twilight.
‘I don’t have a lot of regrets, but I do wish I’d finished college,’ she says ruefully. ‘It’s not just about the learning, it’s about discovering yourself. I’ll be telling my own kids to go to college.’
Reese’s first child Ava Elizabeth was born in September 1999, three months after she married the actor Ryan Phillippe. They had a son, Deacon, in 2003. In the past she admitted that she hadn’t planned to be a young mother, but now she sees that parenthood at 23 gave her focus. ‘When you are young, you think you know everything. The older I get, the more I realise I know nothing,’ she says. ‘Yes, my children gave me big responsibilities, but I was never someone who partied. I like being home.’
Reese and Ryan separated four years ago, and she spoke last year about how their subsequent divorce was ‘very humiliating and isolating’. He left her for the Australian actress Abbie Cornish, with whom he now lives. The complex domestic tableau means inevitably that Ava Elizabeth’s and Deacon’s upbringing will be different from Reese’s.
‘But my kids have two great parents, and we balance our schedules so one of us is always with them,’ she says. ‘When you care enough and are determined to make them the focus of your life, then somehow it works. And I’ve had help. Through difficult times I have always found counselling helpful and I don’t think there is anything shameful in that.’
There is something refreshing about the way Reese is prepared to admit to her fallibility. ‘It’s tough being a woman. You are supposed to be self-sufficient, but we all need our sisters. I have three women friends who will drop anything to help me and I will do the same for them. I believe in those female bonds, because a lot of stuff happens with men and marriage and divorce, but family and friends are paramount.’ She’s right, but I wonder whether this might make her a scary prospect for men? ‘No. I love men! I’m still a girl,’ she says, laughing.
The one thing I’ve been told Reese doesn’t want to talk about is her recent split from actor Jake Gyllenhaal (they had been together for two years). All she does say is: ‘Certainly, being in a relationship is important to me.’ It’s the only time in our conversation that I see a flicker of vulnerability in her eyes.
She’s just finished making an as yet untitled film with Jack Nicholson, Owen Wilson and Paul Rudd, in which she plays a professional athlete – a role for which she is physically, as well as professionally, well equipped. She runs regularly and loves Spinning. Living in Los Angeles has made her particularly aware though, she says, of teaching her children not about ‘fat and skinny’, but about ‘healthy and unhealthy.
I can remember my own mother struggling with her weight and self-esteem. It was hard for me to watch her, because I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. When we women talk about our bodies and our looks, we have to be mindful of the effect this can have on little girls.’
In truth, Reese confesses, she finds living in LA ‘totally bizarre. I don’t feel I belong – my heart isn’t there.’ At weekends, she decamps to her farm outside the city where she and the children keep chickens, goats and two pigs. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she says, ‘I love the sun, and it is where my business is, so it’s right for now – I just don’t think I’ll be there for ever.’
By business, she means her acting and the production company she set up ten years ago to capitalise on her career. It’s called Type A Films – after Reese’s childhood nickname, Little Miss Type A. ‘Taking care of myself financially was something my mother always emphasised,’ she says.
Reese doesn’t talk about her money, but she is smart enough to look after it and encourages other women to do the same. When we finish our interview, we head downstairs to meet a group of Avon’s highest performing representatives. One, Gail Reynolds, a 38-year-old mother of three, is a former accountant who now makes £85,000 a year as an Avon sales leader. Another, ex-factory worker Debbie Davis, 29, earned an astonishing £250,000 last year. They talk to Reese about her recently launched Avon perfume In Bloom; she talks to them about entrepreneurship.
For most actresses, beauty product endorsements are a lucrative sideline. Although Reese is happy to advertise lipstick and mascara, the real attraction that made her sign the deal with Avon, she says, was that it is a company that both professionally and philanthropically is all about empowering women. ‘It dovetailed exactly with my own ideals.’
Across the room, an assistant is signalling it’s time to go. It turns out Reese has been issued an invitation to have tea with Sarah Brown at 10 Downing Street. The girl who once declared to her classmates that she wanted to change the world has become a significant player. Next stop the White House? Who knows? But I wouldn’t underestimate her.
1/11/2010 12:43:00 AM
kenmouse
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