A Slump
After Reese’s critical success with Walk the Line, she admits that the years after were “kind of floundering career-wise”. During a December 2014 interview, Witherspoon said the “slump” was due to her separation and divorce from Ryan Phillippe. She said that she spent “a few years just trying to feel better. You know, you can’t really be very creative when you feel like your brain is scrambled eggs.” She also said that she “wasn’t making things I was passionate about. I was just kind of working, you know. And it was really clear that audiences weren’t responding to anything I was putting out there.”
A Slump
Comeback
When the film Wild came out in 2014, it met critical acclaim. Michael Phillips of Chicago Tribune wrote, “Witherspoon does the least acting of her career, and it works. Calmly yet restlessly, she brings to life Strayed’s longings, her states of grief and desire and her wary optimism.” Wild has been considered Witherspoon’s “comeback” following her career slump. She went on to earn her second Academy Award nomination for the role.
Comeback
