If you are anything like me, you’ve seen most of Reese Witherspoon’s movies (several times over).
As well as we may know her films — I mean, I can recite lines from Legally Blonde easily — there are still so many details about her that fans may not know.
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Here are a few random, little-known facts about Reese!
Reese Witherspoon is one of the most iconic actresses of all time, and it is safe to say that she is only in her prime now!
While Legally Blonde certainly shot her into stardom and she has done nothing but great movies since, it’s her recent performances in Big Little Lies and Little Fires Everywhere that have people looking in her direction!
However, just because people love her, that does not mean that they know everything about her!
Luckily, we have compiled a great list of random facts about the star to get people familiar with her!
Let’s get into it!
1. She doesn’t like going to the gym.
“I’ll be totally honest with you. If I never had to see the inside of a gym again I would be a very happy person. There are people who love it, it’s just their thing. I can do it, and I do it for my job because I’m really lucky to get this job or have a job, but it’s not my first choice of morning activities,” she told Female First .
2. Her children understand that she is famous – and are even fans of some of her films.
“Ava and Deacon [12] are very aware of the work I do, and the rest they don’t pay attention to. They often invite their friends over to the house, and we always have a lot of fun. My kids have seen most of my films, and needless to say my daughter loves Legally Blonde !” she told Working Mother in 2015.
“But Ava knows how to separate her mother from the film characters I’ve played,” she continued.
” Deacon gets angry, though, when he watches me in a film kissing someone other than his father [actor Ryan Philippe].”
3. She ended a first date because the man corrected her grammar.
“I had someone correct my grammar once on a blind date, and within the first 10 minutes the date was over. You just don’t correct somebody’s grammar. That’s just not okay. I’m from Tennessee, so I probably say everything wrong. I might have said ain’t, or something like that,” she told Seventeen .
4. She is involved in several charities.
“I think there are some amazing people out there doing work with different organizations. There is also a wonderful organization called Service Nation, which is organizing an opportunity for people to give back through service work.”
“I think that’s economical at these times and it’s a great way to get kids involved. They work with everything from ‘Habitat for Humanity’ and ‘Teach for America.'”
“Its not just about giving money, but its about giving time, energy, and effort,” she told Female First .
5. She started her own production company.
She explained that after being called “washed up” in a magazine article and having to fight for equal pay among her male colleagues, she simply decided to start her own production company called Hello Sunshine .
“I never knew I could run a company [the media firm Hello Sunshine]. I had to have people tell me I could do it,” she told *InStyle*.
“I had no idea I had this skill until about eight years ago .”
Good for you, Queen!
6. She feels most confident about her comedic acting abilities and least confident about playing sports.
“I’m probably most secure in my comedic acting and least secure in my ability to play basketball,” she told InStyle .
7. She takes prenatal vitamins even though she isn’t pregnant.
“Prenatals. One of my girlfriends told me she takes them even though she’s not pregnant, so now I do, too. It makes my hair look better,” she told Allure .
8. She admitted that who she is as a mother and who she is as an actor are very different.
“My mothering personality is nothing like my work personality. I melt around my kids. I’m much more squishy, soft, and lovey with a caramel center,” she told InStyle .
“I also encourage their deepest dreams and want them to be more expansive in their idea of what they want to become or explore.”
“As a teenager, you only know what you know in the world. You don’t know what it’s like to work in a foreign country or to be in medicine or science. I have friends in a lot of different fields, so I try to surround my kids with people who have incredible experiences in other industries. We can get really isolated here in Hollywood .”
9. She gave birth to her first child with her then-husband, Ryan Philippe, shortly before filming *Legally Blonde*.
“I was worried that I wasn’t getting enough sleep because my daughter Ava was sick quite often during the shoot and there were a lot of days when I didn’t think I could pull it off,” she said to Cinema of balancing work and being a new mom.
“Some nights Ava would wake up screaming because she had the flu and I would spend most of the night trying to rock her back to sleep and then have to be on the set at 7 in the morning for make-up,” she continued.
“And then you throw in the fact that I’m supposed to be playing a very bubbly and energetic California preppy who is smiling all the time! I kept thinking, ‘I’m going to kill myself! I’m never going to make it!'”
10. She was not the first choice to be cast as Elle Woods in *Legally Blonde*.
Believe it or not, the casting director’s first choice for the role was Tori Spelling, followed by Christina Applegate.
After both actresses turned down the part, Katherine Heigl, Gwyneth Paltrow, Alicia Silverstone, and Charlize Theron were next in line. Then Reese .
11. She loves wearing false eyelashes from her local drugstore.
“My makeup artist, Molly R. Stern, taught me how to put on fake eyelashes. She hates that I put on a full strip, but I’m from the South — I love a good ol’-fashioned drugstore strip lash. I pop it on, put a little liquid liner over it, and I feel like my eyes look more open,” she told Allure .
12. She once brought her daughter to a refugee camp.
“Even if you read a million books on a situation, you don’t understand it until you see it yourself. I was very lucky that they organized for her to be there, because she is a little young to be off on these trips. It was… she didn’t say a word, the whole day,” she told Female First .
“And then she really didn’t talk about it until a couple of days later. I think the memories of the thing… We saw women giving birth on metal tables, with their infant sitting there with no clothes on. Kids that were sick, and kids, babies like her brother’s age, sitting on concrete slabs and sleeping with seven other brothers and sisters. But I think the conditions were worse.”
“Seeing that is one thing, but the other remarkable thing was the joy and determination of these people, to rise above, and their determination to have a better life for their children. Their spirit was just incredible! They greet you with smiles and laughter and dancing. I think it’s definitely going to [affect] her for a long time, as it did me.”
13. When *Female First* asked what love advice she would give herself if she could, she replied:
“Well, I had a girlfriend who said something really smart to me the other day. She was telling me a story about how she always used to go to the same coffee shop and she was really into the guy making the coffee.”
“He was this cool guy in a band and she always wanted to go out with him, but she never noticed that the guy giving her the coffee [every day] was like totally in love with her.”
“So she said, ‘I think it’s important not to follow the guy that you’re chasing. Look at the guy who’s chasing you.’ I think that takes time and life experience to sort of notice because boy is it fun chasing boys, especially when you’re young. But when you’re older, it’s a whole other thing.”
14. She makes sure that people hear whatever she has to say.
“I always tended to be outspoken with my opinions,” she told Vogue . “Whether they were appropriate or not.”
As a powerful woman, this is super important! She needs to have a voice!
15. She is working hard to bring women to the forefront of the entertainment industry.
“I was sick of making movies where I was the only female lead on the set. I was sick of seeing scripts where there was one female role, badly written, and yet every actress in town wanted the part because there was nothing else,” she said to Vogue .
16. Meryl Streep praises her:
“On top of the acting and producing and the books and Draper James, she also carves the pumpkins! She raises three kids. She maintains friendships. I know what it’s like to be in this business and also raise kids. You remember that book I Don’t Know How She Does It ? That’s Reese!” she told Vogue .
17. People did not start taking her seriously as a producer until *Big Little Lies*.
Considering the success of the show, this is not hard to believe.
It is just truly unfortunate it took three projects before people took this complete icon seriously!
18. Her book club is very important to her.
“To me always, authors were my rock stars growing up,” Witherspoon said to CBS News . “So being able to … this is gonna make me emotional, but like, sometimes when our writers say, like, ‘You changed my life financially,’ or that, oh my God, we’re like putting them in a position where they get read and seen when they deserve it so much, is worth everything.”
19. She has a pretty common fear.
Well, like most people, standing on top of a very tall building and then having to look down really scares her.
That’s not completely unreasonable if you ask me.
20. She was nursing her daughter Ava on the set of *Friends*.
“I was 23 years old and had just had a baby. I was nursing Ava on set, and Jen just kept going, ‘You have a baby?’ I was like, ‘I know, it’s weird.’ And I remember her being like, ‘Where are you going?’ And I was like, ‘I’m pumping!'” she said to Harpers Bazaar .
21. She gets overwhelmed like everyone else, but one thing keeps her going in the industry.
“I really want to change things. I really want, I see younger women in our industry and I want them to have a better experience. I want to see that they have a beautiful idea of what the future could hold,” she said to CBS News .
Do you know any other interesting and random facts about Reese Witherspoon?
Or were you pleasantly surprised by all of the facts that we presented you with?
Either way, let us know down below in the comment section! We would love to hear from you!
