Reese Witherspoon was so "scared" ahead of her role in Wild that she underwent hypnosis.
The Hollywood actress was struggling with panic attacks for nearly a month before she headed to shoot the 2014 movie in Oregon and she admitted the thought of being alone and isolated on camera left her in a panic.
She said: "Probably Wild. I was so scared to do that. I had hypnosis, I was so scared. I was having panic attacks for three weeks before I started. There was the nudity, sexuality, and drug-use aspect, but also being alone on camera with no other actors."
Reese ended up spending most of the shoot without any other actors in her scenes.
"I hadn’t ever been alone in scenes for days and days. There were probably 25 days of the shoot where I had no other actor opposite me. It was just me and a camera and a backpack. I was like, 'Is this going to be so boring?'" she told Interview magazine.
It was an incredibly tough job for the actress and she admits it changed her "on a cellular level".
"I don’t know if I’ll ever work that hard again, but it changed me on a cellular level," she explained of how she felt after filming had wrapped on the film, which saw her nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress.
Despite the ups and downs of filming the movie, Reese - who has Ava, 21, and Deacon, 17, with ex Ryan Phillippe and Tennessee, eight, with spouse Jim Toth - feels "lucky" to be working as an actress.
She shared: "I’m passionate about what I do. I love making movies and television shows. I feel so lucky when I stand on set, and years of experience have stacked together to create this time in my life where I can really add, and I can really listen, and I can really be a problem solver, and I can always make something better."
"That’s such a great feeling. To feel purposeful and useful at work. I also love making people’s lives a tiny bit easier, whether you provide something that’s a reprieve from their daily life, whether it’s a smile you put on their face - it can be as dumb as social media."
