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Interview: Reese Witherspoon

On a bright summer’s morning, 4000 Russian Avon ladies converge on a concert hall outside Moscow. Dressed in pants-suits and pencil skirts, they have travelled from across the continent to see Reese Witherspoon. A select few – the company’s top performers – ongregate in an upstairs lounge, nibbling nervously on canapés while they wait to meet America’s golden girl.

This day is like “a dream unexpectedly come true”, says one woman. And then, with a wave and a smile, Witherspoon, Avon’s global ambassador, enters the room. Cameras flash. In Manolo Blahniks and a red Jason Wu blouse, she radiates a friendly, easy professionalism. She is here to celebrate Avon’s 125th anniversary and to talk about women’s issues. An hour later, standing onstage, she explains why it’s important to speak up about domestic violence. Russia has no laws against the crime, and Avon is backing a campaign to change that. Witherspoon mentions a new national hotline, then wraps up with an energetic, “Thanks so much for having me!” The women stand and clap, their hands high above their heads.

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The next morning, Witherspoon slips into a booth in the VIP lounge of the Ritz-Carlton hotel and orders a coffee, joking that she has been existing on “chocolate, cheese and bread” all week. “Oh, and white wine.” Three days earlier, she was in Poland; tonight, she heads to California. It’s a whirlwind week, but these trips give her perspective, she says – and help her manage a surprising fear. “I’m scared to speak in public,” she reveals. “I’m really nervous about it. It’s weird because on a movie set I’m fine. But I get nervous in front of crowds.” When she accepted this job four years ago, she adds, “I used to shake when I talked at these conferences.”

It’s hard to imagine the 35-year-old Witherspoon as anything but confident. She’s one of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood, earning an estimated $30 million in 2010/11; she runs her own production company, Type A Films; owns a sprawling ranch north-west of Los Angeles; and has won an Oscar. This summer, she’ll appear on the silver screen again with the highly anticipated This Means War. But she’s open about her vulnerabilities.

“I used to not ever travel,” she says, gazing over Moscow’s Red Square. “I’ve gotten over so many phobias. Five years ago, I was terrified to travel. I was scared to leave my kids.” She smiles. “It’s still not the best feeling. But this is an opportunity to turn the spotlight on something that’s important to me.”

Witherspoon admits that despite her success, she is not as type A as she seems. “I always had a lot of confidence when I was younger, and then I think I got a little nervous in my 20s,” she explains. “But now I feel better. A little more confident again. Not as scared.”

From a distance, Witherspoon’s 20s look like a blast: at 23, she married actor Ryan Phillippe; two years later, she starred in Legally Blonde; four years after that she scored an Oscar for Walk The Line. Along the way, she had two kids (Ava and Deacon, now 12 and 8). But, at 30, she and Phillippe split. She reveals that it was a tremendous blow.

“I was hard on myself when I got divorced. And until I got remarried, I don’t think I realised how stressed I was,” she says, referring to her marriage last March to Hollywood talent agent Jim Toth. “I feel so much relief. I don’t think I recognised how anxious I was about being a single parent. It was really stressful. It’s not easy on anybody.

“I think Nora Ephron says in one of her books, ‘Don’t kid yourself, divorce is really hard on your children. It’s really hard. Children will not be better for it.’” Witherspoon reflects on that last statement. “I mean, there are extenuating circumstances. I’m sure everybody’s life is different, so I shouldn’t say that. But it’s traumatic. Now I feel a great sense of relief and an incredible amount of support from my husband.”

She counts herself lucky to have found Toth. “Somebody close to me once said, ‘Oh, no man will ever accept your children.’ And I just thought it was the most horrifying thing someone has ever said to me in my entire life,” she says, a slight Southern lilt emerging. “I was determined to find somebody who would make that not true. And I got lucky. He’s wonderful. And so wonderful with the children. I’m very blessed.”

Witherspoon’s biggest worry for her kids now is the digital world. “The internet is just so challenging as a parent. Your children are a click away from pornography and paedophilia, and it’s just really upsetting,” she says. “You really don’t know who they are Skyping with or who they are on Facebook with, and I’m trying to stave all that off as long as I possibly can, but I know it’s a reality. It’s just inevitable. I wish I had some sort of forum for women dealing with this, because I have so many friends who don’t know what to do. I just don’t know how to parent in the digital age. I’m terrified of it. To think what my little girl will be exposed to,” she continues, shaking her head. “We can’t even turn on the television. It’s really disturbing.”

It’s not just what’s on TV that gets Witherspoon, but the behaviour of some younger actresses. At the MTV Movie Awards last June, she singled out Hollywood bad girls. “When I came up in this business, if you made a sex tape you were embarrassed, you hid it under your bed,” she said, while accepting the Generation Award. Today, she dials it back, saying, “Look, I can’t throw stones because I’ve done nudity in films. But I want to make a point here. It’s like the exploitation of women exploiting their sexuality to become famous – there is some part of it that doesn’t sit right with me. Especially when we’re talking about women being trafficked and violated. I think we need to be reminded of the women who came before us and who fought hard for our freedoms.”

Witherspoon’s strong sense of self undoubtedly comes from her Norman Rockwell-like upbringing. Born in Louisiana, she lived abroad for four years as a child when her father served as a military doctor in Germany. She remembers bits of it: the Montessori school she attended; the military base where she lived with her parents and her older brother; the walks across the countryside she would take with her dad. At five, she moved to Tennessee, where her father and mother worked as a doctor and nurse respectively. There, she says, “I was raised by my grand-parents a lot. And everything in my grandfather’s life was about his community; he had a garden in the backyard, and every morning he would deliver the extra vegetables to each neighbour’s house. My brother and I would walk along with him. He did it until the day he died. I really credit my family for telling me to think outward instead of inward, and that there’s always somebody in need. It is an antidote to self-obsession.”

Witherspoon’s fate changed at 14 when she saw an ad in a local paper for extras for the film The Man In The Moon. “I just went in to be an extra and they asked me to read some lines,” she remembers. She landed the lead role. Still, she says, “I thought I was going to make a movie and never do it again. I thought I would probably go to college and be a doctor.”

Witherspoon is philosophical about her success. “I struggled with the public aspect of it for a long time, but I’m lucky,” she reflects. “Sometimes I’m like, OK, it all happens for a reason and, if so, what is that reason? Part of this work that I do with Avon feels like maybe I’m getting closer to the purpose of it all.”

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She accepted the job with Avon because she likes the company’s philanthropic work. “I don’t need to be the face of a product,” she says. “But I was blown away by the way they conduct themselves.” Avon has raised almost $900 million for breast cancer, domestic violence and disaster-relief efforts through its Foundation for Women.

Witherspoon laughs when she hears that Avon’s CEO, Andrea Jung, said that the more famous Witherspoon becomes, the more determined she seems to stay grounded. “I’m not a saint or anything,” she quips, with a smirk. “Oh, boy, I’m not. Trust me.” And for now, anyway, we’ll have to.