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"  The fact that you&amp;#039;re drinking is making me very, very happy,&amp;quot; Reese Witherspoon says, eyeing the glass of white wine on the table. &amp;quot;I think it&amp;#039;s great to drink in the middle of the day. I would join you, but I gotta drive to pick up the kids. You&amp;#039;re taking taxis everywhere. You could get drunk!&amp;quot; This cracks her up. &amp;quot;You could go from appointment to appointment highly, highly smashed!&amp;quot; You can bet Witherspoon is the best time going\u2014when she isn&amp;#039;t the designated driver. &amp;quot;I am. I&amp;#039;m fun. I can be really fun. I can tell we&amp;#039;d have a lot of fun if the tape was off.&amp;quot; The former cheerleader, debutante, Harpeth Hall girls&amp;#039; school graduate, and Avon&amp;#039;s newly appointed &amp;quot;global ambassador&amp;quot; laughs like, Ohmygod, you have no idea. In her white Seaton baby-doll dress, white sweater, and gold T-strap sandals, Witherspoon, 31, sits aglow in the sunlight streaming through the floor-length windows of the L.A. Getty Center&amp;#039;s hilltop restaurant. She has a heart-shaped face with a spray of freckles so faint they can&amp;#039;t be seen unless you&amp;#039;re near enough to smell the scent of shampoo in her creamy blond hair. When she gets excited, her blue eyes fire up and her eyebrows dance. The sparkly smile with its teensy underbite erupts into all kinds of laughter, underscoring emotions obvious and otherwise. &amp;quot;Why do Southern women make bad prostitutes?&amp;quot; she asks, answering: &amp;quot;&amp;#039;Cuz we have to write so many thank-you notes!&amp;quot; This sends her into stitches. It&amp;#039;s her mother&amp;#039;s favorite joke. &amp;quot;And so true!&amp;quot; Mention of the tabloids elicits an ironic chuckle. &amp;quot;Everybody is hung out to dry now,&amp;quot; Witherspoon says. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s one thing if you&amp;#039;re up for it and you want it, and you go out without your panties on. But if you&amp;#039;re wearing your panties\u2014gosh darn it, leave me alone!&amp;quot; Chuckle. Chuckle. Tight smile.  Sometimes she can&amp;#039;t help but laugh, like when she&amp;#039;s discussing moments that were defining for her children. &amp;quot;\u2009`Mommy, where did the frog go?&amp;#039; `The frog went to frog heaven, where there are a lot of flies and people don&amp;#039;t forget to feed the frog the right-size crickets, and Mommy&amp;#039;s not responsible for it.&amp;#039;\u2009&amp;quot; Guilty giggle. &amp;quot;Apparently, the crickets were too big. Now we&amp;#039;re thinking about a turtle.&amp;quot;  She howls when talking about her favorite films: &amp;quot;Oh my god, \u2009Joe Versus the Volcano? Dan Hedaya: `I know he can get the job, but can he do the job?&amp;#039; So funny. And About Schmidt? I know every frame of that movie. The relationship he has with his daughter and how he really, really wants to help with the wedding reminds me so much of my dad. That he doesn&amp;#039;t know how exactly to be part of it, but he wants to.&amp;quot; Then there&amp;#039;s the laugh that makes you want to cry. The one evoked by a memory of a defining moment of her own, which occurred a month after her marriage to actor Ryan Phillippe ended. &amp;quot;Right around Christmastime I was sitting in a parking lot,&amp;quot; Witherspoon begins. &amp;quot;And I felt like I just couldn&amp;#039;t get out of the car. It was like, I can&amp;#039;t get out of the car.&amp;quot; She laughs sadly, pressing her ringless hands to her cheeks. &amp;quot;And I thought, Okay, half of the parking lot has dealt with this. More than half of the parking lot has dealt with this. Okay, let&amp;#039;s make it a little bigger. Half of this city has dealt with this. Okay, let&amp;#039;s make it a little bigger\u2014half of this country, until I finally got out of the car. It was like, It&amp;#039;s okay. It&amp;#039;s okay. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s this moment in Walk the Line where June Carter says, `I was never very aware of how much I was seen.&amp;#039; I was very aware of how much I was seen. It was this moment of self-discovery and loss of identity and who was stepping out of the car\u2014you know? Who is that person?&amp;quot; Witherspoon knits her brow, concerned: &amp;quot;Should I not be this honest?&amp;quot; She&amp;#039;s asking the wrong girl. But her vulnerability is endearing, given her seemingly inviolable nature. Though barely 5&amp;#039;2&amp;quot; and maybe 100 pounds, Witherspoon is a tank of capability in an industry fraught with fragile psyches. From her 1991 debut at age 14 in The Man in the Moon, through 30 films that include Fear (1996), Election (1999), Legally Blonde (2001), Sweet Home Alabama (2002), and the Oscar-winning Walk the Line (2005), the actress has conducted herself with a punctilious professionalism indicative of a rare Hollywood blood type. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s not about ambition,&amp;quot; says Robert Benton, who directed her in 1998&amp;#039;s Twilight. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s about a kind of morality.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;No drama, no tantrums, no messed-up behavior,&amp;quot; says Jennifer Coolidge, her Blonde costar. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s like a professional person in a little doll&amp;#039;s body.&amp;quot; Witherspoon executive produced the Blonde sequel through her company, Type A Films, but even with that pressure, &amp;quot;Reese was always unfazed,&amp;quot; Coolidge recalls. &amp;quot;In the middle of filming a monologue, she would stop and calmly say to the director, `Uh, Charlie? That shrubbery over there? It&amp;#039;s strapped to someone&amp;#039;s head\u2014it&amp;#039;s a photographer.&amp;#039; Or, `Charlie, the telephone booth is walking.&amp;#039; Reese would be a great person to be with if you were in a fire.&amp;quot;  Contrary to reports, she&amp;#039;s not &amp;quot;always in control&amp;quot; and doesn&amp;#039;t &amp;quot;have it all,&amp;quot; and thank God. &amp;quot;Oh, come on, man!&amp;quot; Witherspoon says. &amp;quot;I wouldn&amp;#039;t be able to do what I do if I were all those things. I wouldn&amp;#039;t be able to have the empathy or the capacity to understand different lives.&amp;quot; The life she takes on in this month&amp;#039;s Rendition is that of a pregnant American woman searching for her Egyptian husband who has disappeared from a business trip into the ether of a foreign CIA detention facility. Is he or isn&amp;#039;t he a terrorist? That is the question. &amp;quot;I was drawn in by this woman living a Midwestern life who just happens to have fallen in love with this man from a Muslim culture, and the journey that they had to go on to be together before 9/11 and afterward,&amp;quot; says Witherspoon. &amp;quot;The script does a great job of balancing both sides of the human element that we don&amp;#039;t see in the news coverage.&amp;quot; Directed by Gavin Hood (Tsotsi) and costarring Meryl Streep and Jake Gyllenhaal, the film is really an examination of the politics of love in the age of terrorism. &amp;quot;These two people have been through something very traumatic,&amp;quot; Hood says. &amp;quot;And it&amp;#039;s not over. She doubted him. Is the doubt completely cleared up?&amp;quot; The audience&amp;#039;s isn&amp;#039;t. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s why I cast the star power of Reese and Meryl and Jake\u2014you make that debate accessible in a way that people can enjoy.&amp;quot; Anyone hoping to see an on-screen ignition between Witherspoon and Gyllenhaal will be disappointed. &amp;quot;This has been amusing us,&amp;quot; Hood says. &amp;quot;The only time they ever saw each other was in a wardrobe test. There&amp;#039;s one photo that caught them saying hi to each other in the parking lot. That was the last time they saw each other! Jake filmed all his scenes in Morocco, and she filmed all her scenes in L.A. They did not have an affair on the set. The young lady had enough to deal with.&amp;quot; But this past January, when Witherspoon stepped onstage at the Golden Globes to present an award, she projected a lightness of being, as if the weight of a wet mourning cloak had been lifted from her shoulders. With &amp;#039;60s-straight hair and a fresh fringe of sexy bangs, the actress stunned in a sunny yellow strapless Nina Ricci gown set off by a pair of Brian Atwood ruby satin pumps. You could hear the collective: Ryan who? &amp;quot;I was excited for the red shoes,&amp;quot; admits Witherspoon, whose idea it was to wear them. Asked why, she smiles like a cat and blinks. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t have a good answer for that.&amp;quot; Oh, sure she does. Her tail waves lazily in the air. &amp;quot;You know, Holly, sometimes a girl&amp;#039;s just got to put on a pair of red shoes.&amp;quot; Olivier Theyskens, who was appointed artistic director for Nina Ricci in November 2006, designed the dress. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t go in too much for the fashion stuff,&amp;quot; Witherspoon says, &amp;quot;because I got other stuff to do. But I do appreciate people who love what they do and work hard on it. He came to my house with tons of yellow fabric and he started sketching me, and it was so fun! It was so great! I never had that experience before\u2014to have someone so artistic and you mutu\u00ADally inspire each other.&amp;quot;  She wowed again in Nina Ricci at the Oscars, where, having won Best Actress the year before, she presented the Best Actor award to Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland. Did winning change her life? &amp;quot;It made me realize how much I have it all!&amp;quot; She doubles over laughing. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s real purty on my bookcase. Everybody that comes to my house, I say, `You can touch it, but you have to give a speech.&amp;#039;&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Do you ever have those dreams where you&amp;#039;re drowning and nobody&amp;#039;s helping you?&amp;quot; Witherspoon asks. &amp;quot;And people are just standing on the bank watching you drown?&amp;quot; An anxious giggle. &amp;quot;Not really fun-ny!&amp;quot; She has a fear of water, which makes sense for an Aries (a fire sign) but is more rationally rooted in her childhood. &amp;quot;I remember three occasions where my mother dove into a pool to save a child that was drowning,&amp;quot; she says, lost in the memory. And then, &amp;quot;Watching children by the pool...&amp;quot; She shivers, touching the gold bangle bracelet engraved with the names Deacon and Ava. &amp;quot;I have nightmares.&amp;quot;  Witherspoon is a direct descendent of John Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Raised in Nashville, her mother, Betty, is a nurse and college professor; her father, John, is an ENT doctor. &amp;quot;My dad has pulled so many gross things out of ear canals,&amp;quot; she says, thrilling to the ickiness. &amp;quot;You don&amp;#039;t want to know. You wouldn&amp;#039;t sleep tonight. Bugs! Bugs! They scrape on your eardrums!&amp;quot; With a crazed look she uses an index finger to illustrate. &amp;quot;Can you imagine how excruciating that must be?&amp;quot;  Witherspoon grew up in an environment where &amp;quot;the thing that was most valued was intelligence,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;My dad was very, very, very academic. And my mother&amp;#039;s academic. And that was sort of a standard.&amp;quot; She wrinkles her nose. &amp;quot;Anyway, that was hard to reach.&amp;quot;  After graduating from Harpeth, Witherspoon attended Stanford University for two semesters, but as her Vanity Fair director Mira Nair puts it, &amp;quot;Acting is a disease\u2014you&amp;#039;re afflicted or you&amp;#039;re not.&amp;quot; Witherspoon&amp;#039;s first symptom occurred at age seven, in a commercial for a local flower shop.  During the time most teenagers are finding themselves, she was scarily self-aware. Director James Foley recalls a conversation they had when she was 17 and he offered her the role opposite Mark Wahlberg in Fear. &amp;quot;She was concerned about the blatant sexuality in the movie,&amp;quot; Foley says. &amp;quot;She said a very insightful thing. `My body and my sexuality are still pretty new to me, and you know, I&amp;#039;m not as learned about that part of me as I am about other parts of me.&amp;#039; And I was like, Wow\u2014and told her that there was going to be a strong sexual element but no flesh revealed.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s that groundedness,&amp;quot; Nair says. &amp;quot;And also the ability to take flight. I was directing her in this heartbreaking scene where Dobbin decides to leave her, and I said, `What I want to hear is a howl of pain. Feel it\u2014that moment that you think will never happen to you, someone walking out of your life.&amp;#039; I used the first take. It was the howl of an animal in pain, man.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Shit-f--ker! Where&amp;#039;s my phone?&amp;quot; Witherspoon is driving with one hand and with the other digging through a burlap bag stamped FEED. &amp;quot;Lauren Bush designed it. The money goes to fight hunger.&amp;quot; Which is no small fashion statement. &amp;quot;Usually, I love the beauty of a great bag. Now I see things for really how little I need them. And how much of your day, as a woman, you can really fall into that rabbit hole.  &amp;quot;I was reading Arianna Huffington, and she was talking about social service being the antidote to our consumption-driven culture. We are bombarded with things that we think we need. This whole year I&amp;#039;ve been feeling a little different, to put it obtusely. I haven&amp;#039;t bought as much stuff.&amp;quot;  Less is more in more ways than one. &amp;quot;She&amp;#039;s a bit liberated professionally, personally,&amp;quot; says Andy Tennant, who directed her 20 years ago in Solomon&amp;#039;s Choice and later in Sweet Home Alabama. &amp;quot;If you&amp;#039;re going through stuff in your life, you hope for the best and struggle to keep it together, and when it collapses\u2014after the initial shock and pain\u2014you look around and find out who you are.&amp;quot;  Stopping at a pedestrian crosswalk, Witherspoon watches a tall, thin, blond, beautiful girl carrying a portfolio. There&amp;#039;s a sluggishness in her stride. Another day, another audition.... &amp;quot;I would have never been out here,&amp;quot; says Witherspoon. &amp;quot;If I&amp;#039;d had to live in my car? I&amp;#039;m too practical.&amp;quot;  Which is also what kept her from being swept away by the temptations successful young actors face here. Surviving the transition from child to teen to full-grown star, Witherspoon joins the ranks of Liz Taylor, Jodie Foster, and Natalie Wood, whose own fear of water proved sadly prophetic.  &amp;quot;I love Natalie Wood!&amp;quot; Witherspoon says. &amp;quot;Splendor in the Grass is my favorite film! Deanie Loomis. Tragic Deanie: `I&amp;#039;m a good little, good little, good little girl!&amp;#039; Oh, Natalie was so great. The end of that movie gets me every time. She comes wearing that white dress and the white gloves and the white hat to the farmhouse. And the wife is in the housecoat and she&amp;#039;s pregnant and she looks at the front of her own dress, and she&amp;#039;s embarrassed? And Bud [Warren Beatty] is outside with Deanie? And they just know they&amp;#039;ll never be together, but....&amp;quot; Witherspoon sighs. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s something so personal and real about it. You know when you realize that movies don&amp;#039;t always have happy endings and maybe that is a happy ending?&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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