Reese Witherspoon says she ‘didn’t have control over’ sex scene she filmed when she was 19

Reese Witherspoon has spoken about her discomfort shooting sex scenes for the 1996 psychological thriller Fear.

The actor, now 47, was just 19 when she starred in the James Foley (Fifty Shades Darker, Fifty Shades Freed) movie opposite Mark Wahlberg.

In one scene, Witherspoon’s character, Nicole, receives sexual pleasure from Wahlberg’s character David while the pair ride a rollercoaster. Wahlberg was 23 at the time.

Speaking to Harper’s Bazaar for its August cover issue, Witherspoon recalled: “I didn’t have control over [the scene].”

Stipulating that she requested a stunt double for the below-the-waist scenes, she added: “It wasn’t explicit in the script that that’s what was going to happen, so that was something that I think the director thought of on his own and then asked me on set if I would do it, and I said no. It wasn’t a particularly great experience.”

The Independent has contacted representatives for Wahlberg and Foley for comment.

Stressing that she was “certainly not traumatised or anything by it”, Witherspoon said that the experience was “formative” for her.

“It made me understand where my place was in the pecking order of filmmaking,” she explained. “I think it’s another one of those stories that made me want to be an agent for change and someone who maybe can be in a better leadership position to tell stories from a female perspective instead of from the male gaze.”

The Legally Blonde star has gone on to become a Hollywood powerhouse in the producing sector as well as acting.

Last month, Forbes named Witherspoon the wealthiest self-made female actor in the world. The 2021 sale of her production company Hello Sunshine was valued at $900m (£728.9m). She still owns 18 per cent of the company’s shares.

The actor founded Hello Sunshine in 2016 with the intention of telling women-driven stories to “change the way all women are seen in media”. Some of its top hits include TV shows like Big Little Lies, Little Fires Everywhere and The Morning Show. She has starred in all three.

At Elle’s Women in Hollywood event in 2017, Witherspoon alleged that she was sexually assaulted by a director when she was 16, but was told to remain silent by agents and producers

Witherspoon did not name the director but said that the incident was the first of many experiences of “harassment and sexual assault” throughout her career.

“I have my own experiences that have come back to me very vividly and I find it really hard to sleep, hard to think, hard to communicate a lot of the feelings that I’ve been having about anxiety, the guilt for not speaking up earlier,” she said at the time.

“[I feel] true disgust at the director who assaulted me when I was 16 years old and anger at the agents and the producers who made me feel that silence was a condition of my employment. And I wish that I could tell you that was an isolated incident in my career, but sadly it wasn’t. I’ve had multiple experiences of harassment and sexual assault and I don’t speak about them very often.”

Rape Crisis offers support for those affected by rape and sexual abuse. You can call them on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, and 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland, or visit their website at www.rapecrisis.org.uk. If you are in the US, you can call Rainn on 800-656-HOPE (4673)