Reese Witherspoon just opened up about her battle with anxiety and panic attacks. The actress, 45, revealed that she even had to undergo intense treatment through hypnosis to put an end to her panic attacks.
Speaking to fellow actress Tracee Ellis Ross for a new feature published in Interview magazine, Witherspoon explained that preparing for her 2014 role in the movie “Wild” took an emotional toll and lead to her struggles with anxiety.
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Based on Cheryl Strayed's 2012 memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, the movie stars Witherspoon as Strayed as she hiked the Pacific trail.
Witherspoon explained that she spent a lot of time filming on her own without any other actors, which ultimately caused her anxiety.
“I was having panic attacks for three weeks before I started,” Witherspoon explained in the magazine. “There was the nudity, sexuality, and drug-use aspect, but also being alone on camera with no other actors. I hadn’t ever been alone in scenes for days and days.
“There were probably 25 days of the shoot where I had no other actor opposite me. It was just me and a camera and a backpack. I was like, ‘Is this going to be so boring?’”
“I had hypnosis, I was so scared,” Witherspoon said of her coping mechanism. She added that, “I don’t know if I’ll ever work that hard again, but [“Wild”] changed me on a cellular level.”
Speaking of her thoughts on the film, Witherspoon told Ross, “Cheryl Strayed’s book was so beautiful and sacred to me because it spoke to me so deeply about how we as women have to save ourselves. There’s no mother or father coming to save us.
“There’s no spouse. I thought it was radical that at the end of the film, she ends up with no family, no money, no job, no partner, and she’s happy.”
