Reese Witherspoon is looking forward to the next few months.
After a few hit-or-miss films, she has a string of projects coming out that have pushed the actress into new and sometimes uncomfortable territory, and she would have it no other way.
First up, she is a producer for the hotly anticipated big-screen adaptation of Gone Girl, and she has roles in The Good Lie and Inherent Vice fast approaching. The next film Witherspoon is starring in is the edgy Wild, a memoir based on Cheryl Strayed's hiking trip across the Pacific Crest Trail.
This film includes racy, raw sex scenes that a lot of Witherspoon fans might be shocked to see, and that is how she wanted it.
Whatever Witherspoon was defined as before has changed, prompting her to take some serious risks in her film choices. In an interview in the October print edition of Vogue, Witherspoon explains:
"I just didn't want to hear, 'Oh, we don't want to see Reese have sex ... Oh, can we not have any profanity? I wanted it to be truthful, I wanted it to be raw, I wanted it to be real. Nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors, but I think there's a general sense now that I've lived a pretty textured life.
"So many of the things that Cheryl goes through in the book I've been through, you know? I've been married, I've been divorced. Cheryl has this idea that the things that have happened to you are part of you. There's something really beautiful about that idea."
The actress understands that as she ages in Hollywood, personal growth is one way to ensure that she will keep working. As long as Witherspoon is willing to step outside her own former boundaries, then she will find herself in contention for more diverse roles.
How do you think her fans will react to the risks that Witherspoon is taking? Is she breathing new life into a long-running career or taking risks that perhaps she should not? Comment below.
