Reese Witherspoon

It’s fun to do a comedy and hook people in and then hoodwink them into watching a serious movie. I like to lead in with the comedy and then hit them over the head with a drama.

I was thinking about why I make movies, and I know why. Life is hard. It’s nice to go escape and have a good time at the movies. If I can give people a movie about hope, love and the future, then I’ve done my job.

[On singing in Walk the Line] The director came to us and he said “No, I really want you guys to learn to sing. To learn to play instruments and I want you to record an album”. and that is what… and I just absolutely was just gob-smacked and I said .. “I don’t know. I can’t do that.” And he said “Well I want you to try.” Now that’s the thing for me. If someone asks me to try, I will always try.

As far as being in the spotlight and under public scrutiny, a lot of that’s about how much you put yourself out there. It’s not like we go to every premiere and every celebrity function and every charity auction. We really just try to maintain our privacy and never let our public persona get out of hand.

While making Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde, I had like 50 outfit changes. It was great! I’m real into the whole “girlie” thing, it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it.

There’s something timeless and important about making people laugh, about being the right spot in their day.

Do you know how many women get systematically blackballed out of their positions in an office building and can’t fight back?

I love Sell Out, I think it’s great. I love the jingles. The whole thing as an album is a wonderful piece of work. The cover. Everything about it. It’s got humor, great songs, irony.

Finding another way to do what I know I can do pretty well. A way that stimulates me. I’m always on some sort of learning curve. If I can continually be surprised then I’m alert.

You have to learn that if you start making sure you feel good, everything will be okay.

I think if you ask any of us here, we all dreamed of ending up on Saturday Night Live. I remember thinking, ‘I’ll just keep doing this as long as I can get away with it.’

This is truly a blessing. Breyon Prescott, Peter Edge and Tom Corson believe in me and have introduced me to a home that also believes and knows exactly what to do with the type of music I’m doing.

I always thought that was so strange that people would try to corral you and pigeonhole you in one category and not play you anywhere else.

You have to let people see what you wrote. It will never be perfect, but perfect is overrated. Perfect is boring.

Gay people don’t actually try to convert people. That’s Jehovah’s Witnesses you’re thinking of.

I don’t particularly tell my guys to cheat. I just tell them not to get caught.

I’ve had the boyhood thing of being Elvis. Now I want to be with my best friend, and my best friend’s my wife. Who could ask for anything more?

You get the best and the worst of both worlds. I know there were a lot of times when you try to figure out where you fit in. I just realized that it worked to my advantage because I just got along with a lot of people. But to literally be two races, it’s really hard to see color because I’m the gray area. I had to learn about both sides of myself and be really proud of and educated in both.

We drove for the sheer fun of driving because there wasn’t that much money to be made.

[on drumming] There’s something rather nice about spending the evening hitting things.

Whenever you’re scared of something, don’t let that define you. We all feel it, but step up.