new movie comes out
an india-born female director, bollywood choreographer
india is exerting influence ah!

i love her
both her movie/acting and her life attitude
a southern belle with brains!

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A 'Fair' to Remember
Reese Witherspoon tackles her biggest challenge: Headlining 'Vanity Fair' while pregnant

By Angela Dawson
Entertainment News Wire

NEW YORK -- Like so many of the irrepressible characters she has played on-screen -- "Election's" Tracy Flick, "Legally Blonde's" Elle Woods and "Sweet Home Alabama's" Melanie Carmichael, to name a few -- Reese Witherspoon has a way of overcoming obstacles.

Shortly after accepting the demanding but undeniably juicy lead role in Mira Nair's "Vanity Fair," Witherspoon discovered she was pregnant.

"I called Mira and asked if we could do this movie when I was pregnant," recalls the popular young actress, who gave birth to her second child, Deacon, just months after wrapping the period epic based on William Makepeace Thackeray's classic novel.

"I told her I'm about four weeks pregnant so we had better get going," Witherspoon continues. "She was a great sport about it. She thought it would really help the piece, and she used (the pregnancy) as part of the story's development."

Witherspoon plays the ambitious Becky Sharp, a 19th century orphan who aspires to gain acceptance into English society by whatever means necessary. Though crafty and often self-centered, she is nonetheless a likable heroine.

Playing one of literature's notable social climbers, the 28-year-old actress had her work cut out for her. Becky ages 17 years from an uncertain teenager to a worldly woman through the course of the drama.

The role also posed physical challenges for Witherspoon, who had to learn a seductive belly dance number, complete with 20 backup dancers.

The actress, who has recently gone brunette to play June Carter Cash in the Johnny Cash biopic "Walk the Line," says performing the sexy dance number was sort of a surprise to her as well.

"In the script it's written that Becky and the ladies of the court dance for the king," she recalls. "So when Mira brought in Bollywood choreographers and trained dancers ... I was like, 'What do you want me to do?'"

The India-born, Oscar-nominated director simply informed the actress in her delicate British accent, "Darling, you are going to do it and I know it's going to be fabulous."

Witherspoon credits costumer Beatrix Pastzor for designing gowns that masked her pregnancy when necessary and accentuated her belly when the story called for it. "Some of the stuff was so hard to do, but it was so fun," says Witherspoon, who appears in nearly every frame of the film.

An avowed feminist who supports and frequently works with female directors, Witherspoon had no doubt she could handle the role. Indeed, she says her condition may have enhanced the character, particularly in the sequence where Becky's husband goes off to war.

"It added a lot of dimension to me for the character in that time," she says. "What would it be like to give birth at that time and be a woman at that time -- things like that."

As the film's sole American star, Witherspoon says she could relate to her character's unbridled aspirations.

"It's a very universal idea, particularly in America, to reach for something bigger, better or higher, whether it's class, money, jobs or a degree," she says. "The thing I like about this character is that she's not the good girl and she's not the bad girl. Nobody is that clear cut in real life."

So is achieving stardom anything like that?

After a pause, she responds, "My friend says the best job you ever had is the one you had just before you got the job you always wanted. I really like that idea. I constantly feel like I'm striving to do better, get a better job, work harder or get a bigger challenge."

Witherspoon wasn't exactly born with a silver spoon in her mouth (her father is a doctor and her mother is a professor of nursing), but she did come from a family with a distinguished pedigree dating back to the Founding Fathers. One of her ancestors, John Witherspoon, signed the Declaration of Independence.

The blond, blue-eyed Tennessean got her start in show business at the tender age of 7, appearing in TV commercials. In 1991, she made her film debut in the coming-of-age story "The Man in the Moon." While in high school, Witherspoon appeared in "Jack the Bear" and "A Far Off Place."

She quit acting temporarily to attend Stanford University but returned to Hollywood for the 1996 thriller "Fear."

She met her husband, actor Ryan Phillippe, at her 21st birthday party in 1997. They co-starred in 1999's "Cruel Intentions," were married within a year and had a daughter, Ava, who turns 5 in September.

Following the surprise success of her 2001 comedy "Legally Blonde," Witherspoon's status as a superstar was sealed in 2002 when her Southern-flavored romantic comedy "Sweet Home Alabama" racked up more than $100 million at the box office. She was last seen in 2003's "Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde," also a hit.

One of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood, Witherspoon earns upwards of $15 million per picture. But motherhood is her top priority, a responsibility she doesn't take lightly. "I don't work as much because I can't," she says. "I'm too busy with the kids and I want to spend all the time I can with them."

She and Phillippe take turns doing movie projects so at least one parent can be with the children full time while the other is working. Despite rumors to the contrary, she says their marriage is solid. "People are going to talk about you whether you're the butcher at the grocery store or a movie star," she snips. "It just doesn't matter to me. We laugh. It's pretty funny. And it's amazing some of the things people make up in their minds. I'm befuddled by the interest."

Cutting back on work means making one movie a year, which Witherspoon sees as a positive. "It really helps you make good, clear decisions," she says.

She is particularly pleased with her upcoming role in the Johnny Cash biopic, in which she plays the country music singer's equally talented wife -- a singing star in her own right as well as a working mom from the South.

"You can play a mother if you haven't had children, but I think it really deepens the role when you know what it means to love something so unconditionally," she says.

Unfortunately, she never had a chance to meet June Carter Cash, who died four months before her husband in 2003. Instead, Witherspoon has relied on taped interviews, TV clips and other resources for reference in creating her character.

"I met with the family, her children," she says almost reverentially. "I visited their house. I got to walk through her closets and stuff. I know that sounds strange, but just to see her things, all of her musical instruments, where she lived and spent a lot of her life has been really helpful."

Witherspoon took singing lessons and learned to play the Autoharp well enough to mimic Cash's style. She describes singing and recording as "the most challenging, horrifying experience of my life." She also sings in "Vanity Fair," albeit with an English accent instead of a Southern one.

Witherspoon, who honed her English accent in another period piece, 2002's "The Importance of Being Earnest," says she learned a lot from "Vanity Fair's" European cast, including Brits Bob Hoskins and Jim Broadbent, Welshman Rhys Ifans and Irishmen Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Gabriel Byrne.

She initially was a little nervous performing opposite James Purefoy, the English actor who plays her husband, because she was uncertain about how he'd react to her pregnancy. "But he was wonderful," she exclaims. "So lovely. He's such a gentleman, and I can't say that about many of the people I've worked with."

Witherspoon says she was able to pick up some good work habits while on the set of "Vanity Fair" in England last summer. "When you get to a British set, everybody has his lines memorized," which is not always the case in Hollywood films, she points out. "It's amazing. I had to work really hard in getting the dialect and all that stuff. It was a challenge."