Once she’d decided to take on her gritty new role in “Wild,” there were a few things Reese Witherspoon knew she DIDN’T want to hear from movie studio executives: “We want her to be more likable.” “We don’t want her to use drugs.” “We don’t want her to be profane.” And so, Witherspoon says, she didn’t give them the chance. She developed the film, which follows a hard-living woman’s path to solace and redemption via a long trek in the wilderness, outside the studio system under the auspices of her own production company, with private financing.
