Fear sex scene with Mark Wahlberg wasnt great

Publish date: 2024-05-08

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Reese Witherspoon revealed she does not have fond memories of filming her sex scene with Mark Wahlberg for the 1996 psycho-thriller “Fear.”

The now 47-year-old reflected on the roller coaster scene she shot for the film at age 19 that involved her having an orgasm.

“I didn’t have control over it,” Witherspoon claimed in an interview published Wednesday by Harper’s Bazaar, adding that she had requested a stunt double.

“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,” she said about the James Foley-directed film. “It wasn’t a particularly great experience.”

The Post has contacted representatives for Witherspoon, Wahlberg, 52, and “Fear” director James Foley, 69, for comment.

Witherspoon was 19 when she filmed “Fear.” Wahlberg was 22. Universal Pictures
Withersppon reflected on the roller coaster scene she shot for the film at age 19 that involved her having an orgasm. Universal Pictures

Oscar-winning Witherspoon, who at the time was still years away from career-defining roles including “Legally Blonde,” “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Walk the Line,” said her experience on “Fear” was an early lesson on how she would be treated in the entertainment industry,

“I’m certainly not traumatized or anything by it, but it was formative,” she confessed. “It made me understand where my place was in the pecking order of filmmaking.”

She continued: “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.”

Wahlberg and Witherspoon in a promotional still for the 1996 film. ©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection
Reese Witherspoon attends the Apple TV+ “The Last Thing He Told Me” premiere on April 13 in LA. WireImage

Years later, in 2016, Witherspoon formed Hello Sunshine, a production company that set out to tell female-led stories including “Big Little Lies,” “The Morning Show” and “Daisy Jones & the Six.”

Elsewhere in Harper’s Bazaar, Witherspoon discussed how her recent divorce from Jim Toth differs from her first separation from her ex Ryan Phillippe, with the latter feeling “very out of control.”

With Toth, she said, there has been gossip and “speculation” but she “can’t control that.

“All I can do is be my most honest, forthright self and be vulnerable,” she said. “It’s a vulnerable time for me.”

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