Kids are most important: Reese Witherspoon

Reese Witherspoon talks about relationships, having kids, motherhood and her latest movie, which is about divorced couples and parents

How would you slot Anywhere But Home as a holiday movie?
It’s a film about a couple who avoid their families at the holidays and through a series of circumstances have to go home. And they have to face that horrible fear of bringing home your significant other to really meet every humiliating memory that you have of your past. And everyone avoids it. I mean there’s a natural human instinct to avoid it so it’s sort of that comedy about having to really deal with it.

This movie’s also about divorced couples and parents. You yourself are divorced; what is the compromise that you have done with your ex-husband to make it nice for your children?
The most important thing are the kids. It’s like what do they want? What makes them feel comfortable? What makes them happy? The most important thing is not let any kind of feelings affect how you deal with your children. I’m very lucky in that; we raised our kids to just be happy and it’s all about them.

When you were a little girl, did you always want to be a mom?
Before I had kids I had never held a baby, I had never babysat. So when I held my baby, Ava, that was the first time I’d ever held a baby in my life. So I understand that sort of fear of not being a good mom. It took me a long time to feel really comfortable in the role of mother.

In the movie, the philosophy is that the right thing to do for a couple is to get married and have kids. Do you agree with that?
I think the message is more it’s important to stay open to whatever your relationship evolves into. You have to be open to whatever comes your way in life. And that life and love and relationships take all kinds of shapes and that it’s not necessarily the one you recognise.

What is the most important thing to having a good relationship?
It’s important to have honesty and openness and communication. I think my character sort of learns that in this movie. You can’t have a relationship without those things.