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" Reese Witherspoon&amp;#039;s latest movie, Penelope, cruises in to theaters on February 29th, but this go &amp;#039;round, the Oscar winner leaves the leading lady duties to Christina Ricci and plays a supporting character who helps Penelope learn to love herself just the way she is. The modern fairytale about a girl who&amp;#039;s cursed (blessed?) by having a pig&amp;#039;s snout for a nose (no joke) is the first movie from Reese&amp;#039;s production company, Type A, so, of course, she&amp;#039;s more than a little excited about it. Read on to find out why! Q: Did you ever think about playing Penelope yourself? Reese: Yeah, I actually did. I got busy with other commitments and the movie had to go forward, so then we decided to cast it. I always knew I wanted to be in it in some capacity. And it was fun for me to get to play a smaller character. Q: What did you have to do to develop your character? She&amp;#039;s sort of a biker chick with fun hair \u2013 not typically &amp;quot;Reese Witherspoon.&amp;quot; Reese: (Laughs) I found somebody I thought was sorta like her, and I just mimicked her and it was fun. I got to run around the streets of London on that Vespa [motorbike] and got to wear the funny hair, and just be ballsy and funny. Q: We heard there were some, um, &amp;quot;mishaps&amp;quot; on the Vespa? Reese: Um, yeah, because I&amp;#039;m &amp;quot;height challenged,&amp;quot; my feet couldn&amp;#039;t touch the ground and they tried to lower it as low as they possibly could, and my feet still couldn&amp;#039;t touch the ground on it. So we had to put it on a rig and Christina&amp;#039;s too short too, and she had to sit on the back so we had to rig it up. Q: How did you cast Christina Ricci in the role of Penelope? Reese: I was so excited because, well, it&amp;#039;s great when you have this hot script in your hand, and you&amp;#039;ve got this great character. Christina was my first choice and she and I sat down for lunch and I was like, &amp;quot;She&amp;#039;s not gonna want to do this. She has to wear a pig nose.&amp;quot; But she just came in and said, &amp;quot;No, I&amp;#039;m excited, I want to do this!&amp;quot;  Christina is fearless. That&amp;#039;s what I&amp;#039;ve always loved about her. She always plays a very intelligent woman, but also very sharp, very witty. And we&amp;#039;ve grown up auditioning together, and we&amp;#039;ve known each other for years, and sitting in the waiting room, waiting to get cast, or not cast in movies, we made a friendship. So it was great to finally have that collaboration we had talked about for so many years. Q: What about James McAvoy (as Penelope&amp;#039;s love interest), what brought you to him? Reese: We were just lucky to get James. The casting director suggested him and, at the time, I didn&amp;#039;t know who he was but Christina had seen some of his work and she was a big champion of his. And then, of course, with Atonement, he&amp;#039;s become this big movie star now, and I tease him and say, &amp;quot;I got ya when you were cheap!&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s not gonna happen again, I&amp;#039;ll never get him again, but he&amp;#039;s so great, and I&amp;#039;m so happy for him to be having all this success. Q: Speaking of success\u2026Where do you keep your Oscar? Reese: I&amp;#039;ve considered making it into a doorknocker or a necklace but neither one of those are actually very practical. I just keep it in my living room. Q: What&amp;#039;s the best career advice you ever received, and who gave it to you? Reese:  &amp;quot;Never miss an opportunity, just shut up,&amp;quot; by my granddad, and also the other interesting thing about our business is that it&amp;#039;s so ever-revolving. Always be nice to everybody, particularly people that answer the phones, because they&amp;#039;re going to be your boss in four years. And it&amp;#039;s true, it happens all the time! Q: What do you hope that real girls in the audience who are having a really tough time with their self-image take away from this movie? Reese: I guess that there&amp;#039;s all sorts of different definitions of beauty and that it&amp;#039;s about finding what makes you unique. It&amp;#039;s important to really know yourself. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.seventeen.com/celebrity/a11670/reese-witherspoon-interview/>