Trivia

Was approached by a few companies to record music after she provided her own singing voice for Walk the Line (2005).

Considers Wild (2014) to be her best film and her best performance.

Rushed to the hospital after being hit by a car on September 7, 2011 while jogging in Santa Monica, California. Was treated for minor injuries before being sent home. Received a quarter-inch scar on her forehead that she hides with her bangs.

Shortly after she started acting, she had an audition for a role in Cape Fear (1991). She was supposed to meet with Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese for the audition, but at the time did not really know who they were. On the plane, she was talking to the man next to her about her audition, and the man started to rave to her about De Niro and Scorsese. This made her so nervous that she completely blew the audition and the role eventually went to Juliette Lewis.

She was a gymnast for seven years.

Her mother, Betty, has a Ph.D. in pediatric nursing and her father, John, is a surgeon.

Amongst the guests at her wedding were Renée Zellweger, Matthew McConaughey, Tobey Maguire, Robert Downey Jr., Alyssa Milano, Isla Fisher, Selma Blair and Salma Hayek.

Reese is her mother's maiden name.

Was 8 months pregnant with her son Tennessee when she completed filming on Devil's Knot (2013).

Considers Meryl Streep's performance in Sophie's Choice (1982) as the greatest female performance of all time. Witherspoon also states that she was influenced by Streep.

Has 3 children: daughter, Ava Phillippe (b. September 9, 1999) & son, Deacon Phillippe (b. October 23, 2003) with ex-husband, Ryan Phillippe and son, Tennessee Toth (b. September 27, 2012) with husband, Jim Toth.

Best friends with Selma Blair, Chelsea Handler and Renée Zellweger.

Her son is named after former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Deacon Phillippe, a distant relative of her ex-husband Ryan Phillippe.

Neither she nor her ex-husband, actor Ryan Phillippe, use their real first names - Reese's first name is Laura, Ryan's first name is Matthew.

Is one of 13 actresses to have won the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Critics' Choice Award, Golden Globe Award and SAG Award for the same performance. The others in chronological order are Julia Roberts for Erin Brockovich (2000), Renée Zellweger for Cold Mountain (2003), Helen Mirren for The Queen (2006), Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls (2006), Kate Winslet for The Reader (2008), Mo'Nique for Precious (2009), Natalie Portman for Black Swan (2010) and Octavia Spencer for The Help (2011), Anne Hathaway for Les Misérables (2012), Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine (2013), Patricia Arquette for Boyhood (2014) and Julianne Moore for Still Alice (2014).

As extra credit for a high school class, she worked as an office production assistant for the film Devil in a Blue Dress (1995). Director Carl Franklin paid homage to her by featuring Legally Blonde (2001) in the film Out of Time (2003).

Co-founded the film production company "Pacific Standard" with Australian partner Bruna Papandrea in 2012. First books optioned were, "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn and "Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found" by Cheryl Strayed.

She has English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and distant Dutch, ancestry. She is said to be a relative of John Witherspoon, a Gifford, Scotland-born Presbyterian minister who attended Haddington Grammar School, obtained his Master's degree from Edinburgh University in 1739, and was a signatory of the United States Declaration of Independence.

Was the first person to host Saturday Night Live (1975) after the September 11 terror attacks.

Auditioned for the role of Rachel Dawes in Batman Begins (2005), but Katie Holmes was cast instead.

As a child, she appeared in her local Sunday paper modeling kids' track suits and such. She said that it was creative for her. She was paid $50 a day.

Ryan proposed to her in December 1998 while the couple was vacationing at The Planter's Inn in Charleston, South Carolina.

She collects antique linens and is crazy about old embroidery.

Returned to work 8 months after giving birth to her son Deacon in order to begin filming Walk the Line (2005).

She runs a production company called "Type A Films" with Debra Siegal

Her daughter, Ava Phillippe, is named after her ex-husband, Ryan Phillippe's, grandmother.

Is just 9 years younger than Laura Dern, who played her mother in Wild (2014).

Is the second actress to win the best actress Oscar for portraying a female singer in a biography; the first was Sissy Spacek for Coal Miner's Daughter (1980).

Was in a relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal, having met him on the set of Rendition (2007) (January 2007-November 2009).

Her performance as Tracy Flick in Election (1999) is ranked #45 on Premiere magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).

Returned to work 4 months after giving birth to her daughter Ava in order to begin filming her guest appearance on Friends (1994).

She lived in Wiesbaden, Germany, as a young child.

Started children's acting classes at a community college at the age of seven. She was taking adult acting classes by the age of nine.

Has played Robert Pattinson's mother in Vanity Fair (2004), but his scene was cut from the end product. In Water for Elephants (2011) the two of them play lovers.

She was honored with the MTV Generation Award at the 2011 MTV Movie Awards, being the second female in the history of the show to receive the award, following Sandra Bullock who received the award one year earlier.

Performs the audiobook version of Go Set A Watchman, the sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird. In Four Christmases (2008), she appears with Sissy Spacek; who performed the audiobook of To Kill A Mockingbird; and Robert Duvall, who played Boo Radley in the film.

Her wedding ring is an early 1990s Neil Lane, Asscher-cut-diamond, and there are only a few like it in the world.

Refused the lead roles in two horror movies: Scream (1996) and Urban Legend (1998).

Married Jim Toth on March 26, 2011, in a marquee on her ranch in Ojai, California, wearing a custom-designed gown by Monique Lhuillier, before 120 guests. Eighty white doves were released just moments after the couple said "I do".

Won the Academy Award for Best Actress, in 2006, for playing June Carter Cash in Walk the Line (2005). Funnily enough, Witherspoon had already played another Carter family member before; she played Mother Maybelle Carter (June Carter's mother) in her fourth grade play.

Majored in English Literature at Stanford University; on leave from her studies as of 1996.

The year she won her Oscar for Walk the Line (2005), her ex-husband Ryan Phillippe appeared in the movie that won Best Picture, Crash (2004).

Revealed in the 84th Academy Awards montage that her favorite movie is Overboard (1987).

Steve Dontanville from the William Morris Agency is still her agent. They got together after The Man in the Moon (1991).

She was a cheerleader in high school and a debutante.

On December 1, 2010, she was awarded the 2,425th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame by James L. Brooks and James Mangold, accompanied by her children, Ava and Deacon Phillippe, and boyfriend Jim Toth. The star is located at 6262 Hollywood Boulevard, in front of the West Hollywood Hotel.

The dress she wore at the Golden Globe Awards in 2006 was also worn by Kirsten Dunst at the Golden Globe Awards in 2003.

Was considered for the role of Juliet in Romeo + Juliet (1996), which went to Claire Danes.

Her parents separated in 1996 when she was age 20. They still remain close.

Her favorite films include Splendour in the Grass (1961), Overboard (1987), The Impossible (2012), Bad Grandpa (2013) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014).