Reese Witherspoon Gets ‘Wild’: Hear Author’s Take On Her Performance

Reese Witherspoon is already getting plenty of attention for her lead performance in Wild, a movie that follows one woman’s journey across the Pacific Crest Trail in Oregon. The film is based on the book by Cheryl Strayed, and the author has nothing but praise for Witherspoon’s interpretation of her own life.

In an interview with the Source, Strayed described how Witherspoon’s work impacted her.

“You know I always believed in her. I always had complete faith in her. I have never doubted it. Reese is so natural. Like she just has something… I mean she seems like a normal person when you’re just with her in a room. But then she’s on camera and like the way she can just have her face in silence, she’s actually present in a way that not everyone is, you know. It’s a very interesting thing to watch.”

Strayed did the trek in 1995 and wrote about it in her 2012 memoir, upon which the film is based. The character is a departure from the likable girl-next-door characters moviegoers often associate with Witherspoon. Time reviewer Eliza Berman says that is part of the appeal.

“[W]hen Strayed, played by Reese Witherspoon, asks if California will take her as she is, she’s also asking us, the audience. Will we take this foul-mouthed, cheating, destructive woman who refuses to apologize for the ways in which her grief has turned her inside out?”

Writing in Glamour, Strayed noted she had always been an admirer of Witherspoon’s and recognized her broad talent. It was for that reason she approached Reese with her Wild memoir.

“I’d sent my book to Reese because I’d long admired her acting. But more important, I’d always sensed her authenticity beneath the veneer of the diverse characters she portrayed—from June Carter in ‘Walk the Line,’ a role that won her an Oscar at just 29, to Elle Woods in ‘Legally Blonde.’ And my hunch was right.”

Witherspoon indeed won an Academy Award for her work in Walk the Line, and her work in Wild is similarly generating Oscar buzz. As the force behind not only Strayed’s story, but another lauded film this year, Gone Girl, Witherspoon will likely be a presence to be reckoned with at next year’s awards red carpet. As the Inquisitr previously reported, she considered also playing the lead in Gone Girl, but did not take the role after discussions with director David Fincher.

Wild is in theaters now.

[Reese Witherspoon Image: Anne Marie Fox/Fox Searchlight via TIME]