In our weekly seriesAnatomy of a Scene's Anatomy, we're going to be taking a look at (in)famous sexscenes and nude scenes throughout cinema history and examining their construction, their relationship to the film around it, and their legacy. This week, Reese Witherspoon breaks a 16 year nudity drought to once more bare some TA in the Oscar-nominated drama Wild!
Way back in 1998, Reese Witherspoon was an up-and-coming actress wholanded a role opposite three Hollywood legends—Paul Newman, Gene Hackman, and Susan Sarandon—in a mid-level thriller titled Twilight. Like so many up-and-coming actresses, she felt comfortable enough on a set run by Oscar-winning director Robert Benton to shoot a topless scene, the first of her young career. The film came and went without much fanfare, but as Witherspoon's career exploded over the next two years, nudity fans hunted down the film to catch a glimpse of the hottest star in Hollywood nude.
Once her career as a leading lady was more firmly established, Witherspoon didn't seem like the type of actress to do another nude scene just for the hell of it, andonce she won an Oscar in 2006, it looked increasingly as though that ship had sailed. Her nude scene in Twilight was terrific, well-lit and shot when she was 21, making it difficult to top should she ever give nudity another go. But as the years rolled on and she cemented her status as a rom-com queen and a respected Oscar-winning actress, it felt more and more like she was the kind of actress who would never do nudity again.
In October, 2011, Witherspoon was sent a galley print of a new memoir by Cheryl Strayed titled"Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail" by the author herself with a note included saying that she was the only actress Strayed could picture playing her should a film ever be made of the memoir. Impressed by not only the work itself, but the author's dogged insistence that she was the only actress fit to portray her on film, Witherspoon optioned the book. She also optioned another book released not too long after, Gillian Flynn's "Gone Girl," intending to produce the film and play the lead role of Amazing Amy, which ended up pushing "Wild" onto the back burner.
Once Gone Girl acquired David Fincher as its director, however, Witherspoonbacked off the notion of playing the lead role in the film,as Fincher's vision for the character didn't mesh with her own take on the material. She stayed on as a producer, however, which freed up her schedule to move Wild to the front-burner. This would also make her have to finally reckon with some of the content in the story that was obviously terrifying to her as an actress, namely the glut of promiscuous sexual content that dominated much of Strayed's own "wilderness" years, so to speak. After a 2014screening of the film,Witherspoontouched onthe sex and nudity prevalent throughout the script...
“It was really hard to do it,” Witherspoon, 38, confessed during a film QA and screening ofWild. “I didn’t want to do any of it. I really didn’t want to do the sex scenes. I really didn’t want to do the heroin scenes… No sex scenes are fun. They are just like… sometimes they’re fun, but there’s a whole other set of stories. No, it was hard.” [via US Magazine]
Witherspoon used a hypnotist to help get up the nerve to shoot the film's numerous sex scenes, which worked when she was on set. Off set, however,was another story, as she recalled during the same QA calling up author Strayed and playfully chastising her for her past promiscuity...
“I called Cheryl the day before and I was like, ‘I have to do this scene in this alley and I’m having sex with two guys,'” Witherspoon recalled of one conversation, “and I’m like, ‘Why did you do this?!' She said, ‘I’m sorry I was such a slut in the ’90s, but you’re just gonna have to do it. Otherwise people are going to say, ‘It’s just going to be a hiking movie and that’s stupid,'” Witherspoon admitted. “The way she talks and the way she feels and does not give a s— about the way people think about her — it’s really liberating.”[viaUS Magazine]
All of that content gives an easy reading of the film's title, which really has several meanings all told. These are fairly wild nude scenes for any actress, let alone one who has been dubbed America's Sweetheart...
Most of the nudity is kept to small flashes of skin during the film's various montages while Cheryl reflects on her crazy life while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, including a brief shot of her buns as she gets banged from behind...
There are also quiet moments of nudity, such as when she comes out of the bathroom after several days on the trail and examines her various bruises and injuries sustained during her hike...
Good for Reese Witherspoon for having the gumption to do such a role with everything required of her as an actress. She already had an Oscar, it's not as though she thought that this was the only way she could attain such recognition. In a 2014 profile of the actress in Vogue, Wild director Jean-Marc Vallée praised the actress by saying that she was at a point in her career when she could have said no to the things asked of her in this role, but she chose to go for them anyway...
“She’s in the place in her life where she has everything. She doesn’t have to do this. She has a husband, a great house, a great career, money, children. She has everything. And yet she’s still compelled to do something great, go outside of her comfort zone, show something new. It’s not about her showing off and trying to do the ultimate performance. It’s just her. ‘I’m almost naked here, and I’m a 37-year-old, and I’m not perfect, but it’s all right, all right, let’s do it.’ ”
And thank goodness she did it. Now let's just hope we don't have to wait until 2030 for Reese's next nude scene!
Catch up withthe most popular editions of Anatomy of a Scene's Anatomy...
—The "Real Sex" ofDon't Look Now
—Scarlett Johansson's Nude Debut inUnder the Skin
—The 2 Very Different Sex ScenesofBasic Instinct
—How Halle Berry's Nude Debut Led Her toMonster's Ball
—HowMulholland Dr.'s Legendary Lesbian Scenes Deepen the Film's Mystery
—Showgirlsand the Dangers of High Camp
—Rosario Dawson Laid Bare for Danny Boyle'sTrance
—Katie Holmes MakesThe GiftWorth Remembering
—Jennifer Connelly Comes of Age inThe Hot Spot
—Oscar Winner Ang Lee Goes Full NC-17 with Lust, Caution
—Get High on Katherine Waterston's Full Frontal Debut in Inherent Vice
—You, Your Mom, and Everyone Else Saw Kate Winslet's Boobs in Titanic
—Examining Nymphomaniac's Dubious Claims of Digital Double Trickery
***Click here for a complete list of all Anatomy of a Scene's Anatomy articles***
