On the 'Wild' side

NEW YORK -- Once she'd decided to take on her gritty new role in "Wild," there were a few things Reese Witherspoon knew she didn't want to hear from movie studio executives:

"We want her to be more likable."

"We don't want her to use drugs."

"We don't want her to be profane."

And so, Witherspoon says, she didn't give them the chance.

Reese Witherspoon is pictured in a scene from the film "Wild." (Anne Marie Fox ~ Fox Searchlight Pictures)

She developed the film, which follows a hard-living woman's path to solace and redemption via a long trek in the wilderness, outside the studio system under the auspices of her own production company, with private financing. "And then I took it to the studios and said, 'I'm not changing a word,"' Witherspoon said in an interview. "And I had three bids on it that day.

"And I think it's important, you know?" the actress said. "You grow up, you change -- I'm a 38-year-old woman now, I have three kids, and I've lived a lot of life experience. It's really important to me that the things I put out into the world are meaningful and thought-provoking. Otherwise, what am I doing?"

"Wild," based on the best-selling memoir by Cheryl Strayed, is a story of personal catharsis, and listening to Witherspoon, one gets the sense she was seeking a sort of professional catharsis by choosing it. The role, which has garnered significant Oscar buzz, includes difficult scenes depicting rough sex and heroin use. Witherspoon wore no makeup and spent days lugging a heavy backpack up and down hills.

"By far, it's the hardest thing I've done in my life," she says. "The physical aspects were really challenging -- the elements, the heat, the cold, the water, the rain, 55 locations in 35 days, and carrying that backpack. And there was nothing else to cut to -- just me."

Emotionally, it was even harder, she said: "One day I'd be getting divorced. Another, my mother would be dying. The next day I'd be using heroin. It was just nonstop -- not even a roller coaster, just a continual descent downward! There are always scenes that I dread, that I say, 'That day's going to be miserable.' And here, it was three weeks of that."

Witherspoon's director, Jean-Marc Vallee, calls the actress "a trouper." As well he should: He noticed the backpack looked too light and forced her to carry a much heavier one. "And then he just walked away, and I was like, OK ..." Witherspoon laughed. "You can see it digging into my skin. Because it really was digging into my skin!"

Vallee said Witherspoon "went out there with no makeup, looking like nothing, on the trail for 65 percent of the film, looking like a hiker, with a heavy backpack on her back. I removed the mirrors in the makeup trailer and she didn't look at herself."

Witherspoon, who already has one Oscar on the mantelpiece for 2005's "Walk the Line," says it was no accident she chose such a film at this point in her career, a time that finds her veering away from trademark sunny, bright roles and romantic comedies. (Her 2012 supporting role in the Mississippi River coming-of-age tale "Mud" is another example of her new direction.)

"It's something I consciously did for myself," she said. Her production company, Pacific Standard, is specifically geared toward projects with complex roles for women -- like the role played by Rosamund Pike in "Gone Girl," which came out in October.

"I was seeing sort of a deficit in leading roles for women," she said. "It was just sort of the lack of complex characters, of interesting, dynamic women on-screen. I have a 15-year-old daughter, and it's very important to me what she sees in movies and television."

"Wild," which opens in select theaters Dec. 3, was an easy choice.

"I read the manuscript in 24 hours," she says, after receiving it from Strayed. "And I immediately called my agent and said, 'I don't know who this woman is, but I need to talk to her. I need to hug this person, and get to know her.' It is absolutely one of the most important books I've ever read in my life."

It's important to note, Witherspoon adds, that "Wild," which has a screenplay by Nick Hornby, isn't a "chick movie" -- something she hopes audiences will realize.

"It's written by a man and it's directed by a man," she says. "If it was a man's story, I don't think we'd be remarking that it's a man's movie."

"It's a movie about humanity," she says. "About love and loss and sex and drugs, and how to find your way out of the woods. I think we all have this moment in our lives when we realize, no one's coming along to save us. We have to save ourselves."