Reese Witherspoon inFear(1996).Photo:AJ Pics/Alamy
AJ Pics/Alamy
Reese Witherspoonis reflecting on how the sex scene inFearmade her uncomfortable.
In a new cover interview withHarper’s BAZAARfor the magazine’s August 2023 Performance Issue, Witherspoon, now 47, recalled that she “didn’t have control” over the scene in question, where her teenage character Nicole experiences an orgasm while riding a roller coaster, at the hand of Wahlberg’s character, David.
“It wasn’t explicit in the script that that’s what was going to happen, so that was something that I think the director thought of on his own and then asked me on set if I would do it, and I said no,” Witherspoon explained.
And while the outlet noted that Witherspoon requested a stunt double for the shots taken below the waist, “It wasn’t a particularly great experience,” theOscarwinner added.
Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human-interest stories.
Reese Witherspoon forHarper’s BAZAAR’s August 2023 Performance Issue.Cass Bird/Harper’s Bazaar Magazine
Cass Bird/Harper’s Bazaar Magazine
“But it was formative,” she said. “It made me understand where my place wasin the pecking order of filmmaking.”
For Witherspoon, “It’s another one of those stories that made me want to be an agent for change and someone who maybe can be in a better leadership position totell stories from a female perspectiveinstead of from the male gaze,” she said.
Reps for Foley, 69, did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment on Wednesday.
Reese Witherspoon on the cover ofHarper’s BAZAAR’s August 2023 Performance Issue.Cass Bird/Harper’s Bazaar Magazine
During her speech at theElleWomen in Hollywood event in October 2017, Witherspoon spoke out aboutsexual harassmentand assault in Hollywood, recalling an incident she said occurred when she was 16.
“I have my own experiences that have come back to me very vividly and I find it really hard to sleep, hard to think, hard to communicate a lot of the feelings that I’ve been having about anxiety, honest, the guilt for not speaking up earlier," she said during the event, held in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations againstHarvey Weinstein.
TheWildstar went on to say she feels “true disgust at the director who assaulted me when I was 16 years old and anger at the agents and the producers who made me feel that silence was a condition of my employment.”
“And I wish that I could tell you that was an isolated incident in my career, but sadly it wasn’t," Witherspoon said. “I’ve had multiple experiences of harassment andsexual assaultand I don’t speak about them very often.”
“But after hearing all the stories these past few days and hearing these brave women speak up tonight about things that we’re kind of told to sweep under the rug and not to talk about,it’s made me want to speak upand speak up loudly because I actually felt less alone this week than I have ever felt in my entire career,” she added.
source: people.com
