Reese on the loose

As far as tightly wound actresses go, Reese Witherspoon tops the list. She insists upon a strict sense of order in her life. Her production company is called Type A, a moniker her latest co-star, Robert Pattinson, says fits her strong sense of self perfectly.

And even when she appears to be having a spontaneous moment, lamenting that her well-orchestrated career built around an avoidance of bikinis has been breached by her current role as a leotard-clad circus performer, it turns out the line is a well-rehearsed quip that's been repeated, practically on a loop, to scores of media outlets.

Which makes it all the more confounding that the 35-year old actress would subject herself to the unpredictable behaviours of circus animals such as the nearly 9-tonne elephant Tai and a slew of trick horses when she shot the adaptation of the Depression-era romance Water for Elephants.

"I have anxiety. I get nervous, and I shake," Witherspoon says. The night before shooting with the elephant, "I didn't sleep, and I literally shook and shook and shook," she says, feigning relaxation in a hotel room chair, still perfectly coiffed in a grey dress and 3-inch heels after a long day of enchanting the international press corps.

"But the performances with the elephant were really magical for me. Against my better instincts I decided to ride the elephant with no harness, with no safety equipment. It was pretty great."

Could it be that Witherspoon is finally loosening up? She seems to be doing a lot of leaping without a protective net lately. After ending her eight-year marriage to actor Ryan Phillippe in 2007, she recently began a new chapter in her life, tying the knot with Jim Toth in a private wedding ceremony just a week before embarking on a publicity tour for Elephants.

She's moved easily between big studio projects and smaller films throughout her career, but Water for Elephants is something of a hybrid.

Her commitment to the demands of Elephants surprised even her director, Francis Lawrence.

"A lot of people talk about training and practising and what that really means is not very much. I was impressed by her physicality, training with the animals, getting good and conquering it when it feels scary," Lawrence says.

"She also got really into the body language. Costume designer Jackie West and I gave her a bunch of movies from the '30s and she really studied these women and how they moved and spoke and held their bodies. She changed a lot about herself physically for this."

It was the emotion of the character, though, that Witherspoon connected to when choosing to play Marlena, the luminescent animal rider. Though Witherspoon was not interested in speaking about her recent nuptials, she readily acknowledges that the roles she chooses subconsciously mirror some of her own life experiences. So it's easy to see the appeal of the Water for Elephants story line of finding new love.

Volatile

In the film, Marlena is trapped in an abusive marriage with the volatile ringmaster August (Christoph Waltz). When she meets the younger, wayward veterinarian Jacob Jankowski (Pattinson), she discovers there's a lot more living to be done beyond the big top.

"She's got her life wound so tightly and controlled down to every detail," Witherspoon says of Marlena, but you get the sense she's really speaking autobiographically.

"You know whenever you feel terribly out of control, you try to control everything and keep it very small. Then in comes this Jacob character: idealistic, young and hopeful... For me, this movie is about optimism, that second chances are possible. And to be fearless in your decision-making."

Witherspoon's bravery also manifested as strength through the dusty and often dangerous shoot in the eastern Ventura County town of Piru last summer. Pattinson recalls filming a key scene between the two of them and a sick horse, one in which Witherspoon is comforting the massive animal, while delivering her lines through her tears of sadness.

"I literally saw the horse put his entire weight on her thigh and she didn't say anything to anybody and we continued," says Pattinson. "At the end of it, I had to come up to her and say, ‘That must have hurt. You can't tell me it didn't.' And she said, ‘Yes, I'm going to go back to my trailer and cry now.' But she held those tears [of pain] for about 45 minutes."

That tenacity has been beneficial to Witherspoon throughout her acting life. She recognises that her toughness has helped her maintain a lengthy career in a fickle Hollywood.

"There are a lot of stumbling blocks as an actor," she says. "There is a lot of rejection and a lot of being told you're not this or you're not that. Anyone who thinks that once you've become an established actor you're on easy street, that's just not true."

It's hard to believe that the diminutive actress, who landed a lead actress Oscar in 2006 for her performance as June Carter in Walk the Line, has trouble getting roles.

"I'm very lucky that I've gotten to do a lot of comedies and a lot of dramas, but [the Oscar] sort of legitimised my dramatic career. It made it easier for people to see me in that context."

In the meantime, she'll toggle between dramas and comedies, with the action-comedy This Means War, opposite Chris Pine and Tom Hardy on deck next. She plans on a honeymoon once her current work is finished — some reports have her already flying off to Belize — and if she can escape the paparazzi, which happens now only a day at a time, she may take in a few more deep breaths.

"There are days when I wish it was a suit that I could just zip off and put next to the door and just be vulnerable," she says of the fame and media scrutiny. "And then there are other days when I get to travel the world and do incredible things. Those days are reminders of why I do this."