Reese Witherspoon
is known for choosing her roles carefully. In a business that
often focuses on (high) salaries, this actor opts for artistic
value, and she’s earned audience and critical respect
for her trouble.
The photogenic Witherspoon
began appearing in commercials and taking on modeling jobs
at age seven until, at age 11, she won a 10-state talent search
and left her hometown of Nashville, Tennessee, to accept a
significant part in 1991's The Man In The Moon. She was immediately
cast in the 1991 TV movie Wildflower, then Desperate Choices:
To Save My Child (TV - 1992), Jack the Bear (1993) and SFW
(1994).
Education subsequently became
Witherspoon’s priority as she entered Stanford University
to major in English literature. Until that time she had studied
mostly via correspondence on film sets. Films won out, when
two years later, in 1996, the Stanford degree was put on hold
for Fear, Freeway (for a Catalonian International Film Festival
Best Actress award), and Overnight Delivery. High profile
roles in Twilight (1998), Pleasantville (1998 - Movieline
Young Hollywood award), Cruel Intentions (1999) and Best Laid
Plans (1999) followed. Witherspoon briefly returned to television
to make a guest appearance on the primetime comedy, Friends,
but it was another return, this time to modeling, that made
her “very big” in Hollywood when her six-story high
image in a GAP advertisement graced Sunset Boulevard. Literal
largeness aside, the actor’s most recent film role, in
Election (1999), has earned her by far the most acclaim --
the National Society of Film Critics’ Best Actress award,
a Golden Globe nomination, a Los Angeles Film Critics’
award nomination, an Online Film Critics’ Society award,
a National Society of Film Critics’ award, and an Independent
Spirit award.
Busy with all of that on-camera,
1999 was a banner year off-camera, as well, as Witherspoon
wed fellow actor Ryan Phillippe and gave birth to daughter,
Ava. The couple appeared opposite one another in Cruel Intentions,
but first met in 1997 at Witherspoon’s 21st birthday
party.
Coming up are opportunities
for Witherspoon to take her career to yet another level. There
are acting roles, of course, (in Desert Blue and American
Psycho) and she is slated to not only star in, but produce
Slow Motion. Her hope is to one day be a screen writer. Moviegoers
can look forward to an eclectic and high caliber mix from
this likeable star. She knows how to pick ‘em.
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