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CELEBRITY NEWS |
The essential Reese
With a little help from mommy classes, couples therapy and Tennessee charm, 'Sweet Home's' Reese Witherspoon juggles fame and family
By Jill Smolowe (PEOPLE)
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PEOPLE
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(PEOPLE) -- Positioned precisely in the center of a Manhattan ballroom, Reese Witherspoon stands greeting admirers who've come by to gush about the premiere of her new film "Sweet Home Alabama." When one woman asks her to pose with a smitten teenage fan, Witherspoon moves right in, offers a smile -- then, when the flash fails, trots out her best southern manners.
"Take it again," she urges. Again, she poses; again no flash. When the woman finally gets off a shot, Witherspoon can't resist getting off one of her own. "You are the worst photographer in the world!" she chides, charming them with a blast of laughter. "It's a good thing that's not your profession!"
At 26, Witherspoon has hooked Hollywood with that same blend of sugar and spice. Her comic turns in movies like 1998's "Pleasantville" and 1999's "Election" triggered talk of a modern-day Lucille Ball, and after last year's hit "Legally Blonde" she commands $15 million a film. Now Alabama, which made $37.5 million its first weekend, is prompting even more heady comparisons -- namely, to the reigning queen of romantic comedy, Julia Roberts.
"She has charisma and that 'thing,' " says Marshall Herskovitz, who directed Witherspoon in one of her early movies, '93's "Jack the Bear." "The camera loves her, she is down to earth and sexy, and she has a great dignity about her that you don't see in people as young as she is."
As for playing America's New Sweetheart, Witherspoon is happy to oblige, if only in limited doses. "It's so flattering, but I don't think of myself that way," says the actress, who shot her first TV commercial at age 7. "I think all the failures I've had the past 13 years have helped me appreciate the moment." They also help keep her priorities straight. Less than an hour into the postpremiere party, she and her husband of three years, "Igby Goes Down" star Ryan Phillippe, 28, slip away together.
Much like her characters, Witherspoon is "wholesome, adorable and deeply smart -- very, very smart," says Holland Taylor, who costarred with her in "Legally Blonde." She has learned from watching the pros. "Nobody made Julia Roberts a star. She busted her butt," Witherspoon told Premiere. "She broke down stereotypes and believed in herself. That's the kind of tenacity I think it takes to succeed."
Next: Witherspoon's lesson book | Attending therapy
