Reese stands tall in 3-D

Reese Witherspoon voices Susan Murphy, aka Ginormica, in DreamWorks Animation's Monsters vs. Aliens.


Reese Witherspoon can’t be pigeonholed. In Freeway, her 1996 breakthrough film, she played a resourceful 15-year-old who’s been described as a “nearly illiterate firebug and serial shoplifter.” She was a bouncy but brainy sorority girl turned lawyer in two Legally Blonde films. And she won an Oscar as country singer June Carter Cash in Walk the Line. But she’s never before tried her hand at a character who’s 49 feet tall and strong enough to go head-to-head with a mountain-size alien invader. That’s the role she voices in the new DreamWorks animated 3-D extravaganza Monsters vs. Aliens. Witherspoon talked about fame, her Oscar and playing a character five-stories tall.

Q : You once said you would feel famous when you became a question on Jeopardy. You’ve now been a question on Jeopardy. So what do you think of fame?

A: It is all it’s cracked up to be. It’s fantastic. I highly recommend it. No (laughs), it has its drawbacks, but the positives outweigh the negatives. It’s better than digging a big ditch.

Q: Monsters vs. Aliens has a girl-power theme. Who are the women who’ve influenced you?

A: Diane Keaton. She’s done great things. Goldie Hawn is amazing. Judi Dench. Personally, my mother and my grandmother were really strong female influences in my life. I went to an all-girls high school and had a lot of great teachers. (There were) lots of great, strong Southern women around when I was growing up.

Q: Your production company is called Type A Films. And a few years ago, you said, “I spend a lot of time considering and planning my life and career.” Is that still the case?

A: Probably not as much so. I had this notion that you could control everything in your life, which I’ve been sadly stripped of. It’s actually a good thing to realize that the universe is pointing you in different directions all the time. Great stuff comes out of the unknown.

Q: You play a giantess in Monsters vs. Aliens, and you’re going to do Alexander Payne’s Downsizing, a satire about miniature people. Coincidence or part of the plan?

A: (Laughs.) The two are not linked in any capacity.

Q: How did your career change after winning the Oscar for Walk the Line?

A: It definitely opened a lot of opportunities to work with great directors, meet great writers and producers.

It changes how people think about you. It’s been great for me.

Q: You’ve performed in dramas and comedies. Do you have a preference?

A: It’s usually just the character (I would play), more than the script, if I can really see myself as that person or see some part of that person in my life or maybe in a friend. That helps me make the decision.

Q: You said in your Oscar acceptance speech that it was your “lifelong dream” to be a country singer. When are we going to hear your first record?

A: (Laughs.) I think you’ve heard it. It was called Walk the Line, and that will probably be my last as well. It was a really difficult experience, challenging in a good way. You watch American Idol and you say, “Oh, I can sing.” But until you really have to do it and learn how much technique goes into it, you can’t even really appreciate it. So I had this unique opportunity to work with the best of the best, coaches-wise, producers. And it’s good to cut out when you’re on the top there.

Walter Addiego writes for the San Francisco Chronicle.