Reese Witherspoon Talks About 'Four Christmases'

Reese Witherspoon returns to comedy with a starring role alongside Vince Vaughn in the Warner Bros Pictures holiday movie Four Christmases. Directed by Seth Gordon (King of Kong), Four Christmases finds dating couple Kate and Brad having their Christmas day filled by having to take part in not just one or two family celebrations but four – yes, four – distinct events. As Kate, Witherspoon has to endure a stint in a jump house surrounded by unruly kids and having a baby vomit on her chest.

How do you prepare for the holidays?
Reese Witherspoon: "There are many stages. First, there’s panic. I walked into Starbucks and they were playing Christmas music last week and I had an absolute panic attack. 'Turn it off, I’m not ready!' I think I have to get through Thanksgiving first, then it starts with the parties then the family. That’s when the family starts trickling in, then you finally get to get rid of the family and sleep for a few days. Then it’s New Year’s, then it’s all over."

Do you miss it when it’s all over?
Reese Witherspoon: "Nah, I’m not a look-back kind of person. I’m a go-forward gal."

And it’s always true.
Reese Witherspoon: "Well, always. Because that’s how you feel about everybody now, right? You can’t just get along with people and work with them. There has to be some sort of drama. But, no, we got along great. We were very good friends and were very much partners on this movie. We decided to produce it together and we rewrote the script together. Every day was like, ‘How are we going to do this? What are we going to do now?’"

"My idea of a holiday movie? My family always went to movies on Christmas Day so whatever movie was coming out: The Godfather, Elephant Man. Your typical cheerful holiday fare. It’s fun to go to a movie on the holidays and it’s nice to be part of a movie that at least grownups and teenagers can see. My kids are looking forward to a lot of movies, mainly Bolt. And Wall-E is playing on DVD at my house on a loop every day."

How would you describe this to people?
Reese Witherspoon: "It’s all about a couple who avoids their families at the holidays and through a series of circumstances have to go home to all four families and they have to face that horrible fear of bringing home their significant other to really meet every humiliating memory you have of your past. Everyone avoids it; it’s a natural human instinct to avoid it, so it’s sort of that comedy about having to really deal with it."

You’re part of a divorced couple. What sort of compromises do you have to make with Ryan Phillippe for your children?

Reese Witherspoon: "I think the most important thing is the children. What do they want, what makes them happy, what makes them feel comfortable? I think just to bear that in mind and that the most important thing is to be a grown-up about it and not let any kind of feelings affect how you deal with your children. I think that’s the most important thing. I’m very lucky. We raised our kids just to be happy and it’s all about them - what do they want?"

How do you divide up what they do with each of you over the holidays?
Reese Witherspoon: "I don’t know. It’s not that formal. There’s a lot of communication and a lot of just being very open about things. There’s nothing contentious about any of it. It’s all very go with the flow and whatever happens in the moment."

Reese Witherspoon: "It is interesting. And, first of all, that’s a very modern idea - that we’re going to be together but not be married and never have children. It sounds like something people theorize about, but is very difficult to do. People grow and evolve and change and it’s sort of interesting to see how this relationship in the movie has to grow. I think the most important thing we really worked on was finding that place of being comfortable in the uncomfortable. Not knowing where things are going to go and still feeling okay about that. We really worked hard on trying to find that in words and scenes."

Can you talk about your development process with Vince and director Seth Gordon? So much seems like it was off the cuff.
Reese Witherspoon: "It does, but that’s not entirely true. We knew every day what we were shooting. We worked on the script for four months for five or six hours a day before we ever went on set. We broke it down, threw scenes away, started over. By the time we got to shooting, we really knew what we were doing. Seth was there the whole time and Vince. That kind of gave me a taste of what the improv situation was going to be because Vince is so smart and funny. Off the top of his head, the funniest person I’ve ever worked with in my entire life. Also when you’re working with that kind of person it’s important to create a space where they feel free to do whatever they want to do. It was a challenge for me to stay there and keep up with him. And he taught me a lot about improv and ad-libbing, and I feel really a better actor for that experience."

Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon (born March 22, 1976), better known as Reese Witherspoon, is an American actress and film producer, who has established herself as one of the highest-paid Hollywood actresses in recent years.

Witherspoon landed her first feature role as the female lead in the movie The Man in the Moon in 1991; later that year she made her television-acting debut, in the cable movie Wildflower. In 1996, Witherspoon's performance in Freeway established her as a rising star and led to roles in three major 1998 movies: Overnight Delivery, Pleasantville, and Twilight. The following year, Witherspoon appeared in the critically acclaimed Election, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination. 2001 marked her career's turning point with the breakout role as Elle Woods in the box office hit Legally Blonde, and in 2002 she starred in Sweet Home Alabama, which became her biggest commercial film success to date. 2003 saw her return as lead actress and executive producer of Legally Blonde 2. In 2005, Witherspoon received worldwide attention and praise for her portrayal of June Carter Cash in Walk the Line, which earned her an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress.

Witherspoon married actor and Cruel Intentions co-star Ryan Phillippe in 1999; they have two children, Ava and Deacon. The couple separated at the end of 2006 and divorced in October 2007. Witherspoon owns a production company named Type A Films. She is actively involved in children's and women's advocacy organizations. She serves on the board of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), and was named Global Ambassador of Avon Products in 2007, serving as honorary chairman of the charitable Avon Foundation.

Witherspoon was born at the former Southern Baptist Hospital (now the Ochsner Baptist Medical Center) in New Orleans, Louisiana, into a middle-class family. Her father, John Witherspoon, is a Georgia-born otolaryngologist who previously served as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army reserves. Her mother, Betty (née Reese), is from Harriman, Tennessee, has a Ph.D. in pediatric nursing and works as a professor of nursing at Vanderbilt University. Witherspoon has claimed to be a descendant of Scottish-born John Witherspoon, the sixth president of Princeton University and a signatory of the United States Declaration of Independence. This genealogical claim, however, has never been verified. Because Witherspoon's father worked for the U.S. military in Wiesbaden, Germany, she lived there for four years as a small child. After returning to the U.S., she settled and spent her childhood in Nashville, Tennessee where she was raised as an Episcopalian.

Witherspoon was selected as a model for a florist's television advertisements at age seven, which motivated her to take acting lessons.At age eleven she took first place in the Ten-State Talent Fair.Witherspoon received good grades in school;she loved reading and considered herself "a big dork who read loads of books." On mentioning her love for books, she said, "I get crazy in a bookstore. It makes my heart beat hard because I want to buy everything." Witherspoon attended middle school at Harding Academy and graduated from the prestigious all-girls' Harpeth Hall School in Nashville, Tennessee, during which time she was a cheerleader.She attended Stanford University as an English literature major.After completing one year of studies, she left Stanford to pursue an acting career.

Witherspoon is proud of the "definitive Southern upbringing" she received, which, as she said, gave her "a sense of family and tradition" and taught her about "being conscientious about people's feelings, being polite, being responsible and never taking for granted what you have in your life." Witherspoon is described as a "multi-achiever" and was given the nickname "Little Type A" by her parents. On discussing her early achievements, she told Interview magazine, "I just don't see any of it as that remarkable. Maybe that's the attitude I choose to have to keep me sane and keep my feet on the ground. I grew up in an environment where women accomplished a lot. And if they weren't able to, it was because they were limited by society."

Marriage

Witherspoon met American actor Ryan Phillippe at her 21st birthday party in March 1997, where she introduced herself to him saying "I think you're my birthday present." The couple became engaged in December 1998,and got married in Charleston, South Carolina on June 5, 1999 at Wide Awake Plantation, following the release of the box office hit Cruel Intentions. They have two children: a daughter named Ava Elizabeth, born September 9, 1999,[109] and a son Deacon Reese, born October 23, 2003.To be able to look after the children, the couple alternated shooting schedules for their films.

By 2005, in response to news reports of Witherspoon and Phillippe receiving marriage counseling, Witherspoon stated, "We've done that in the past, and it's always struck me as odd that people grabbed onto that story and made it sound so negative." In December 2005, she said on The Oprah Winfrey Show, "In what capacity is working on yourself or your marriage a bad thing? What marriage isn't a journey? ... Nobody's perfect ... We all have our own set of problems."That same month, Witherspoon also said in an interview, "I think if anybody rests on the idea that they are perfect or their life is perfect or their relationship is perfect and is so troubled about destroying the facade as opposed to getting to what's real, that is troublesome."

In October 2006, Witherspoon and Phillippe announced that they decided to formally separate after seven years of marriage. The following month, Witherspoon filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences.[112] In her petition she sought joint legal custody of their two children and sole physical custody, with full visitation rights for Phillippe. The couple had no prenuptial agreement and the couple would be entitled to half of all assets gained during the marriage under California law, with Witherspoon's being the more significant. Witherspoon requested that the court grant no spousal support for Phillippe, which he did not contest.On May 15, 2007, Phillippe filed for joint physical custody of the couple's children, and made no motion to block Witherspoon from seeking support from him.In September 2007, Witherspoon spoke openly about the separation for the first time when she told Elle magazine that it was "a difficult and frightening experience" for her. Witherspoon and Phillippe's final divorce documents were granted by the Los Angeles Superior Court on October 5, 2007, ending their marriage.

Throughout 2007, there was persistent speculation in the mass media about a romantic relationship between Witherspoon and her Rendition co-star Jake Gyllenhaal. The pair denied the rumors while promoting Rendition in the fall of 2007. However, after the finalization of Witherspoon's divorce in October 2007, Gyllenhaal and Witherspoon became more open with their relationship, particularly due to the release of paparazzi pictures that showed the couple vacationing together in Rome.The couple has since been regularly photographed together by paparazzi. In March 2008, Phillippe was the first to confirm the relationship in interviews conducted during the promotion of his latest film. Witherspoon personally confirmed her relationship with Gyllenhaal in an interview for the November 2008 issue of Vogue, calling her boyfriend "very supportive"