Reese Witherspoon was on the Tonight Show last night and told Jay Leno her TV viewing habits. It sounds like she pretty much watches television all day, because she said she watches a little of The Today Show, a little Good Morning America, then she catches The View, then Regis & Kelly, then soaps, also Martha Stewart’s show. She said she loves crafting and that she watches Martha Stewart for that, but that she flips the channel a lot. She also likes Project Runway and Amazing Race, and said she has a male friend who is going on Amazing Race who is a writer who she does yoga with.

She also talked about how she has trouble as a producer getting money and asking for favors, but when Jay asked her about demanding actors asking for things like bigger trailers and better TVs she said she understood that and doesn’t mind getting small comforts for actors, like their favorite coffee in the morning.

Reese said her worst auditions were when people put her down personally, and said things like “you’re not pretty enough,” or “smart enough,” or “tall enough.” Then Jay told the story of his worst audition, where he had to wait 2 hours for the casting agent to tell him that they were looking for a Woody Allen lookalike and he didn’t fit the bill. That was the most interesting part of this interview, considering that Reese didn’t tell any cute stories other than the fact that she watches TV constantly. As an Internet addict, I can’t relate.

Here are the videos.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Reese is promoting Penelope, a fairy-tale type film about a girl born with the face of a pig. It is out in the US on February 29, and Reese plays sidekick to Christina Ricci’s title character.

The header image is an older one of Reese promoting Rendition at the Rome Film Festival on 10/21/07, thanks to PRPhotos.

Reese Witherspoon is a marketing genius. She knows exactly how much to say in an interview without giving much away. Reese says “Yeah, my divorce was devastating, but I’m not going to talk about it” and you’ve got your headline, baby. “Reese says divorce was devastating’. Ta da. And the conversation goes back to whatever project the actress is currently promoting.

Reese is currently out promoting Penelope, her latest flick from her production company Type A, in which Christina Ricci plays a woman with a pig’s nose. I’m not giving away any more of the plot, because I am dying to see this (I love Reese) and don’t want to spoil it.

Reese spoke to E! News telling them she wants to shoot someone. That’s headline-worthy right there.

Here’s what she said about shoot-’em-up movies wherein the leading man gets to take down the bad guy. “Why does the guy get to shoot him? I want the girl to shoot him!” she said, laughing intermittently. “I love watching Angelina Jolie kick ass in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and I can’t wait to see her in Wanted. I would love to shoot someone. In the knee cap or something, just to stop them!”

I would really like to see Elle Woods (Reese’s character from Legally Blonde) go crazy and shoot people. Elle, in a movie with Jason Bourne, where they go around shooting all her ex-boyfriends and members of her sorority. That is an instant movie classic.

Then, Reese told Good Morning America that she wants her kids to get bullied so they’ll have the experience:

“I’ve had movies that were stinkeroos! And then, you know, I think everybody has experience of a being awkward. I was always really short and really underdeveloped and had big coke-bottle glasses … I think, that’s where I got a personality from, though, man. I wouldn’t give any of it back — not for a day.”

Penelope has grown up not only dealing with the shame of her parents, but also with the ridicule of her classmates. Witherspoon sees this taunting as “formative” and says her own experience with failure has helped define who she is.

“I wouldn’t want my children to miss out on any of that teasing and bullying and don’t you think it kind of makes you who you are?” Witherspoon asked Connelly.

“This drives me crazy about today. Everyone wins the award and then, you know, everybody’s an MVP? No! They’re not! Okay? I distinctly recall the two weeks of crying because I didn’t make the softball team. It made me interesting, you know?”

Gee, why don’t you just put a couple of ‘kick me’ signs on their backs as you drop them off to school Reese? You don’t think they’re going to get picked on? All kids get picked on, and famous kids probably more so. Reese was actually talking about this in the context of her new movie, where the title character has a pig’s nose and I suspect would get some teasing. And when I say ’some teasing’ I mean ‘relentless teasing’.

Then, she talks about paparazzi and her fear of a butt shot.

The mother-of-two admits the prospect of her bikini-clad bottom gracing the pages of tabloid magazines and internet sites around the world terrifies her.

Witherspoon says, “I hate that the paparazzi takes my picture when I’m on vacation: `Oh my god, did they see my butt? I hope they did not see my butt.’”

PR Inside

Which I totally sympathize with, because even the most bootylicious are afraid to see a photograph of their asses on the cover of a weekly rag.

Now this is all very cute and entertaining of Reese, and makes for good press, but what was the pink elephant in the room she was avoiding talking about? One was the death of Heath Ledger and her (unconfirmed) boyfriend Jake Gyllenhaal’s reaction to it. The other was her husband’s latest interview about the divorce and the other woman Abbie Cornish.

Way to go Reese. Penelope is in cinemas February 28th.

Note by Celebitchy: Here’s the trailer for Penelope, it looks so cute!

And here are some stills from the film, thanks to AllMoviePhoto. Also shown are Christina Ricci, James McAvoy and Peter Dinklage. The last three pictures were taken in May, 2006 during filming. Spoiler Alert: The final picture below shows Ricci with her full face for the film, so don’t look at that image if you would rather not spoil it before you see the film.

“There were a good four or five months of not being able to get out of bed … It was the worst time in my life … I spend a lot of time just holed up in my house in Los Angeles. I don’t really go out because I know it’s going to turn into a photo shoot … because I was married to the highest-paid actress in the world. Even though I’m not with her any longer, there is a certain amount of notoriety that I guess sticks beyond. It’s just not interesting to me. It’s not how I want to be defined.” - Ryan Phillipe in W Magazine

For reasons completely unbeknownst to me, I’ve always sided with Reese Witherspoon in her divorce from Ryan Phillippe. Probably due to that nasty rumor that he was cheating on her, and/or jealous of her career. But whenever he’s interviewed he comes across as genuinely brokenhearted about the whole thing, and admits to a level of sadness few men would. It seems like he was truly broken apart by the whole thing, and is still very much in the process of putting himself back together. Ryan gave a pretty in-depth interview to W magazine recently, where he talked about the divorce and his relationship with Abbie Cornish, who he was long rumored to have had an affair with. Ryan insists that the two are not a couple.

“She and I are close friends, and as far as if there is any future, that is not where we are at now,” he says. “That is what other people like to say or like to assume. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a friendship, and we are getting to know each other in a really difficult situation.”

Cornish was labeled the “other woman” after it was rumored that the two slept together during production on Stop-Loss. Asked about the veracity of the gossip in a rather blunt manner, Phillippe bursts out laughing and says, “First of all, I wouldn’t answer that, but I would say that things are never as simple as it’s made out to be in the tabloid press. It was unfair for her to be called the names that she was, because it wasn’t about that. I don’t think an outside person can ever cause a divorce. I had difficulties in my relationship, and in my marriage, long before I ever met her.”

[From W Magazine]

Ryan also gives a really astute answer when the subject comes up of why his relationship with Reese ended. He says that the public wants answers - and he doesn’t even go off on how people aren’t entitled to answers. He just says that they wouldn’t necessarily be satisfied with them.

Phillippe says these popular diagnoses of his failed union widely miss the mark. “I certainly understand the level of interest that comes along with a public marriage,” he says, “and with being married to someone like Reese, who so many people love with good reason. People want answers. But I think sometimes they wouldn’t be happy with what the answers would be.”

[From W Magazine]

Ryan has mentioned in a previous interview that he was so depressed over the divorce that he was suicidal. He noted to W that he couldn’t get out of bed for months, but that things did eventually get better, little by little.

A little later, Phillippe says his divorce was “the darkest, saddest place I had ever been. It was a struggle—there were a good four or five months of not being able to get out of bed. It was the worst time in my life.” These days, things are better. “You get through it. It’s a process that’s not easy, but I get less and less sad about it every day.”

[From W Magazine]

It’s really heart-wrenching to read what he has to say. Phillippe definitely doesn’t come off as a bad guy, and he doesn’t portray Reese as a bad person either. I am always curious as to why their relationship ended, but he’s right, the average member of the public would probably never be satisfied with the answer, because we weren’t a part of that relationship and don’t understand the intricacies of what went on. Ryan says he and Reese have maintained a cordial relationship because of their kids. It doesn’t seem that they’re warm to each other, and it appears that there’s still sadness and hurt, which is understandable. Hopefully as time goes on everyone will heal and things will thaw out.

Header image is of Ryan at the Edinburgh film festival on 8/23/07, thanks to WENN.

Reese Witherspoon ran some errands around LA on Saturday with the help of her mini-me, Ava. Even though Ava is a seasoned figure skater, maybe she wasn't quite ready to hit the slopes with her dad just yet. Instead, Reese's big girl accompanied her mom on a coffee run and a trip to the dry cleaners. Fun times, but not quite as cute as seeing the whole crew out and about with Jakey G.

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