Reese Witherspoon: Queen of the love triangle

Making assumptions about an actor's psyche from the roles they choose, well, that just sounds like the simplest form of pop psychology. Still...it's hard not to notice that Reese Witherspoon has made three movies in a row in which she's at the centre of a love triangle.

In December's How Do You Know she was torn between a baseball player (Owen Wilson) and a businessman (Paul Rudd). In this month's Water for Elephants she's a 1930s circus performer who falls for a dreamy veterinary student (Twilight heartthrob Robert Pattinson) while married to the show's abusive ringmaster (Christoph Waltz). And later this year she'll star in This Means War, about two buddies (Tom Hardy and Chris Pine) who put their friendship at risk when both fall for her.

We're not suggesting the mother of two harbours a secret desire to carry on with two men at once. As far as we can tell she has always ended one relationship before starting the next. Her romance with Jake Gyllenhaal began after she separated from husband Ryan Phillippe, and her current relationship with Jim Toth, head of motion picture talent at the powerful Creative Artists Agency, started after her romance with Gyllenhaal was dead and buried. Witherspoon and Toth officially announced their engagement — through the appropriate publicists, of course — this past December and married in March.

It's just that sometimes a woman wants to feel like she's desirable — whether it's in the bedroom or in her casting agent's office. And prior to How Do You Know, Witherspoon hadn't been seen on screen since 2008's meh rom-comFour Christmases. Remember, this is the woman who just a few years ago won the Best Actress Oscar for her magnetic portrayal of June Carter in Walk the Line.

'I don't know what happened,' the Nashville native recently told Entertainment Weekly. 'I just didn't read anything that I liked. And I think that if you don't work for a while, you get a little, like, stuck. It was particularly hard around the writers' strike. But it feels different now, too. The movies that are being made are different. There are a lot of really, really big movies about robots and things — and there's not a part for a 34-year-old woman in a robot movie.'

Maybe having two guys fight over you on screen is a safe way to boost the ego, especially at a time when your personal life is in flux and the good roles aren’t coming in such abundance as they once did.

Check out a video interview with the cast here

Witherspoon, who turned 35 last month, admits she formed a very close emotional bond with one of her Water for Elephants co-stars. So close, in fact, that she couldn't stop crying the day filming wrapped and she had to say goodbye to...Tai, the 9,000-pound elephant.

"I wept all day," Witherspoon told the Los Angeles Times. "It was one of the most extraordinary filmmaking experiences of my life. You work with actors and directors, but to have this nonverbal complete relationship with an animal that we were all very connected to was very magical." Witherspoon recalled her first meeting with the pachyderm; apparently it was love at first sight. "They had her pick me up, and I just screamed. She could crush you, but she knows the exact amount of pressure to put on you."

The movie is based on a novel by Canadian author Sara Gruen, who was born in Vancouver, raised in London, Ontario, went to the University of Ottawa, and then lived in Ottawa for another decade before relocating to the States. Gruen wrote "Water for Elephants" as part of National Novel Writing Month — an annual event that challenges authors to put an astounding 50,000 words to paper in a single month. As you can imagine, not all of the ensuing books are gold, but Gruen's period tale about glamorous circus performer Marlena, her brutal husband August and the veterinarian Jacob was on The New York Times' Best Seller List for 12 weeks in 2006.

"Marlena's a really interesting girl," Witherspoon told Empire magazine. "She was abandoned as a child, found her way through '20s America — which was obviously headed towards the Depression — and once we find her in this movie, they're in the middle of the Depression. So she definitely has a survivor instinct."

Witherspoon must have liked the character because, reports are, she made only $2-million (U.S.) for her performance. For most, that would be a pretty good take for a few months of work, but considering Witherspoon's paycheque for This Means War is estimated at $12-million, it's pocket change.

Perhaps the actor's string of love triangle-centric movies has something to do with the fact that she's finally comfortable being the seductress.

"I was always, as a younger actress, very conscious of not wanting to act sexy," she recently told Glamour magazine. "I didn't see myself like that. But I think as a woman, you get older, you feel more confident in your sexuality. You're not as intimidated by it, not as embarrassed by it. Sexuality and femininity is an accumulation of age and wisdom and comfort in your own skin. I feel better — so much better now than I ever did in my 20s. I am calmer; I know who I am. And as a result, I feel much sexier."

After building her reputation by playing ambitious, perky, attractive — but not really sexy — characters like Election's wannabe student president Tracy Flick and the perfectly put together Elle Woods in the Legally Blonde movies, it seems Witherspoon is unleashing a new weapon in her acting arsenal.

Speaking of sexy, she also gave Glamour some insight into why her romance with Toth is working so well after dating actors for so many years. "Every relationship has its own dynamic. I don't want to disparage any of the other relationships that I've had that were meaningful and wonderful. But what I'm finding out is that it’s very comfortable to be with somebody who understands my career, but who doesn't do what I do."

Perhaps settling down off-screen means settling down on-screen too. Looking at the movies Witherspoon has on tap after This Means War — voicing a Scottish princess in the animated Brave, playing a pharmaceutical industry employee in Pharm Girl, and a bio-pic of singer Peggy Lee — there isn't a single love triangle among them.

Marni Weisz is the editor of Cineplex Magazine.

Happy 20th Anniversary!

While we know Reese Witherspoon started acting at an early age, for some reason we don't really think of her as a "child actor." Yet Reese was just 14 when she got her first big-screen role — and a starring part, no less — in the coming-of-age drama The Man in the Moon (seen left). The film came out in 1991, making this year Witherspoon's 20th anniversary in movies.

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xoxo
Carrie