Reese Witherspoon Says She Had No Control Over Her Most Disturbing Sex Scene
Reese Witherspoon says her request for a body double to stand in for shots below her waist in the 1996 psycho-thriller Fear was rejected by director James Foley, leaving her without control over a very specific sex scene. The actress described how the experience shaped her view of the entertainment industry in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar.
“It made me understand where my place was in the pecking order of filmmaking. I think it’s another one of those stories that made me want to be an agent for change and someone who maybe can be in a better leadership position to tell stories from a female perspective instead of from the male gaze.”
-Reese Witherspoon
“I didn’t have control over it,” Reese Witherspoon told the publication. “It wasn’t explicit in the script that that’s what was going to happen, so that was something that I think the director thought of on his own and then asked me on set if I would do it, and I said no. It wasn’t a particularly great experience,” she added.
The scene in question required the then 19-year-old Reese Witherspoon to simulate an orgasm on a rollercoaster with Mark Wahlberg’s character, who played her love interest in the movie. However, the actress isn’t asking for sympathy. “I’m certainly not traumatized or anything by it, but it was formative,” she explained.
“It made me understand where my place was in the pecking order of filmmaking. I think it’s another one of those stories that made me want to be an agent for change and someone who maybe can be in a better leadership position to tell stories from a female perspective instead of from the male gaze,” Reese Witherspoon continued.
At 47 years old, Reese Witherspoon is working to level the playing field in Hollywood through her production company, Hello Sunshine. The company has already been involved in numerous projects that focus on female leads, such as Big Little Lies, the Amazon miniseries inspired by Fleetwood Mac called Daisy Jones & the Six, and the thrilling limited series The Last Thing He Told Me, starring Jennifer Garner.
Reese Witherspoon’s Recent Work
Reese Witherspoon is also set to star in the highly anticipated third season of The Morning Show, which premieres on Apple TV+ in August. As a prominent voice in entertainment, the actress sees herself as a “glass-half-full-type person” and is embracing the resurgence of feel-good romantic comedy roles reminiscent of the ’90s and early ’00s.
One such delightful and light-hearted film is Your Place or Mine, released on Netflix this year, where Reese Witherspoon shares the screen with Ashton Kutcher. The story follows best friends Debbie and Peter, who also happen to be total opposites. She craves routine with her son in Los Angeles while he thrives on change in New York.
When they swap lives for a week, Debbie and Peter realize that what they think they want might not be what they need. Although Your Place or Mine didn’t receive too much love from critics, Reese Witherspoon believes these types of stories are just what the world needs as humanity’s capacity to handle as much heartbreak and tragedy that’s happened in the world has diminished.
Reese Witherspoon’s next project is the upcoming wedding comedy You’re Cordially Invited. The film is directed by Nicholas Stoller for Amazon Studios and stars Witherspoon and Will Ferrell. The story begins when a bride-to-be (Geraldine Viswanathan) and her dad (Ferrell) find out that their perfect wedding venue has been booked by another bride (Meredith Hagner) and her wedding-planner sister (Witherspoon).
The Legacy Of Fear
Meanwhile, Peacock plans to turn Fear into a series. Ron Howard, Lilly Burns, and Kristen Zolner will executive produce the project for Imagine Television, alongside Brian Grazer, who worked on the Reese Witherspoon film. The series follows a young couple in a dangerous psychological game of cat and mouse.
The story begins when David and Nicole meet in a chance encounter of extraordinary romance. However, it swiftly becomes evident that this seemingly flawless couple is far from perfect.
Presented from conflicting perspectives, the story deals with concealed motives and skillfully reimagines the “he said, she said” dynamic into a suspenseful tale of toxic relationships, brimming with unexpected twists.
