Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Witherspoon plays the lead role in Wild and also co-produced the film 
 
 Hollywood star Reese Witherspoon has said her new film Wild was the most challenging of her career to date. 
 
 The Oscar-winning actress plays a young woman who goes on a 1,100-mile hike across the Pacific Crest Trail after the break-up of her marriage. 
 
 Based on the memoir by Cheryl Strayed, Witherspoon's role involves scenes of explicit sex and drug taking. 
 
 "It's the hardest I've ever done for many different reasons," Witherspoon told reporters in London. 
 
 "The physicality was really difficult, but after that was the emotional part of it," she continued ahead of the film's European premiere. 
 
 "The sex scenes were the hardest thing for me to do. I've never had to do anything like that in my entire life. 
 
 "I had to do all the parts of the movie, the parts that made me feel uncomfortable too, because it is about emotional honesty," the 38-year-old went on. 
 
 The actress, who also co-produced the film, has been tipped as a frontrunner for next year's best actress Oscar. 
 
 She previously won the award in 2006 for her role as Johnny Cash's wife in Walk the Line. 
 
 Wild shows Witherspoon's character carrying a heavy backpack on a gruelling 94-day journey of self-discovery across hot desert and icy mountains. 
 
 The actress revealed the backpack had originally been filled with newspaper, only for director Jean-Marc Vallee to exchange it for a heavy load to make her movement look more realistic. 
 
 Image copyright TIFF Image caption The actress's performance could see her in the running for a second Oscar 
 
 Witherspoon told the BBC News website that she had benefitted from having the real Cheryl Strayed on set during filming. 
 
 "In some ways I was a little scared that she would be watching and judging me. But it would actually help me get into the scene." 
 
 Strayed said on Monday that many of the conversations she had with Witherspoon had not been about the making of the film. 
 
 "They were about our lives, our childhoods and relationships, talking about ourselves as mothers - everything from the mundane to the extraordinary," she told the BBC. 
 
 "There was some [talk] about how to hook up the backpack, but the more important work was opening ourselves up to each other." 
 
 British novelist Nick Hornby, who wrote the film's screenplay, said Wild could not be described as a so-called "chick flick". 
 
 "It's about grief and heroin addiction and promiscuity and being really tough physically and mentally," said the Fever Pitch and High Fidelity author. "So it's not really like any chick flick I've ever seen." 
 
 Wild has its European premiere at the BFI London Film Festival later and is released in the UK on 16 January. 
 
 Vallee's previous film, Dallas Buyers Club, won Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto acting Oscars earlier this year. ||||| As you know, lambs, it’s not often that I leave New York. I’ll make exceptions for summers in France and unwinding in Ibiza…and for Reese Witherspoon, I will travel to her home turf. 
 
 I meet the stunning and surprisingly-chipper-for-a-Saturday-morning Southern belle at the Loews Hotel by Vanderbuilt University in Nashville. The megstar mommy wears a gorgeous yellow and blue sleeveless dress while upstairs her baby boy Tennessee is hanging out with her 14-year-old daughter Ava and other friends. 
 
 “It’s all about getting the kids breakfast,” says Reese. “I’m really lucky that I love when a ton of things are going on around me.” 
 
 Reese was raised in Nashville and now has a home there. As a unique nod to her roots, she chose the location to premiere The Good Lie, her new movie about African refugees who are brought to Kansas City. 
 
 “Last night, it was so cool. We premiered the movie in the same theater where I saw all my favorite movies as a teenager. I would sit for hours in that old theater that was build in the 1920s just being transported to a new world.” 
 
 Gossip Girl: Welcome home! 
 
 Reese: It’s so good to be home in Nashville. I’m so used to being in LA and New York. 
 
 Gossip Girl: How are you balancing motherhood with being a movie star? 
 
 Reese: You should see my hotel room today. I have a teenage daughter with all her stuff and books and school reports and baby things all over the place. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I just wish there were more hours in the day, but somehow it all works out. I like when things are busy, but I also like a day to just chill in my yard with the kids. 
 
 Gossip Girl: This is a great season for you with Wild, which is getting so much Oscar buzz, and The Good Lie, which is getting critical raves. You also produced Gone Girl. Did you plan to take over fall at the multiplex? 
 
 Reese: (laughing). I have a bit of a traffic jam. All these movies are coming out at the same time. It wasn’t planned. For a few years, I was a little bit lost as an artist. I wasn’t able to find what I wanted to do. I was making choices that I wasn’t ultimately happy with. What started this whole string of things was getting back to the kind of women I wanted to play. 
 
 Gossip Girl: What kind of women do you want to present on the big screen? 
 
 Reese: I want to play interesting, dynamic female characters. 
 
 Gossip Girl: Let’s start with The Good Lie where you help refugees from Africa make a new home in the United States. How did you get the role of the employment agent worker who helps them find jobs? 
 
 Reese: I met with the director and he said, ‘I want to be clear. This movie is not about you, Reese!’ That made me so happy. I didn’t want to be a white American girl coming to save the African people. My character in this movie is just as lost. She doesn’t have a family and these refugees become her family. This was a beautiful opportunity to talk about how family is where you find it. I thought that was a beautiful message. 
 
 Gossip Girl: The Good Lie is about not taking anything for granted. Do you think we do that too much in our lives? 
 
 Reese: Absolutely. My favorite scene in the movie is when the guys from Africa come to America and can’t believe that you can just touch a faucet and turn clean water on and off. They’re always searching for water to survive. The message is you need to really appreciate your life and your education, health care, and even food. I hope a lot of young people will go to this movie and then discuss it at the dinner table. 
 
 Gossip Girl: Didn’t you take your teenage daughter to Africa to see the people who are still in refugee camps? 
 
 Reese: I did take my daughter and it was a very emotional trip. We saw 250,000 people who are still displaced and sleeping on concrete slabs. They speak seven languages and there is very little health care and little food there. I hope this movie is an opportunity to raise awareness and create change. We assume that the people in refugee camps are not intelligent. I found that’s not true. These are people who were at the top of their fields before war came. They were doctors, educators, and community leaders. Now, they’re displaced. 
 
 Gossip Girl: What did your daughter think of being at the refugee camp? 
 
 Reese: My daughter is a wonderful, socially conscious girl. But even if a kid has read a million books about a situation, you don’t understand it until you see it yourself. She was young to be on one of these trips, but she wanted to go. She didn’t say a word the whole day we left the camp. She really didn’t talk about it until a few days later. 
 
 Gossip Girl: What was something you saw there that you will never forget? 
 
 Reese: We saw women giving birth on metal tables with their infants placed right next to them after they were born. Sadly, we saw kids who were sick and my daughter saw babies her little brother’s age who were just sleeping on concrete slabs with seven other brothers and sisters. We also saw the joy and determination of these people to rise above their situation. They greeted us with huge smiles, hugs, laughter, and dancing. It affected me. It was very emotional. 
 
 Gossip Girl: What do you think is important for teen girls to do to expand their consciousness? 
 
 Reese: I think travel is the antidote to any selfish behavior. It’s not their fault. We give our kids access to things that disconnect them from other human beings. I think it’s important to put down the electronics and see how the world is great. That’s what I wanted for my daughter who is 14. 
 
 Gossip Girl: You’re a brunette in The Good Lie. How did that happen? 
 
 Reese: Everyone wanted me to be a brunette and I was like, ‘OK.’ I had just had a baby and I didn’t even know if I wanted to make a movie. I was still nursing when I read this great script and said to myself, ‘How am I going to do this?’ You know, your brain is a little confused after you just had a baby. I was really confused! But it was nice to do this role and depart from myself. Most of the movie, I was covering all my post baby weight, too. 
 
 –Reporting by C.L. Gaber 
 
 More Gossip!
– In Wild, Reese Witherspoon plays a woman who embarks on a 94-day, 1,100-mile hike alone, and the actress says the role is "the hardest I've ever done"—and not just because she had to carry a heavy backpack while filming so her movements would look realistic. The movie is based on Cheryl Strayed's memoir about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail after her mother dies and her marriage ends, and the film includes explicit sex and drug scenes. "The physicality was really difficult, but after that was the emotional part of it," Witherspoon told reporters before last night's European premiere in London. The raw role could pay off, as Witherspoon's performance is generating no small amount of Oscar buzz. "The sex scenes were the hardest thing for me to do. I've never had to do anything like that in my entire life," Witherspoon continued, according to the BBC. "I had to do all the parts of the movie, the parts that made me feel uncomfortable, too, because it is about emotional honesty." And Strayed herself was there during filming, which initially "scared" Witherspoon, she said, but ultimately, "it would actually help me get into the scene." British novelist Nick Hornby, who wrote the screenplay, underscored Witherspoon's take on the movie: "It's about grief and heroin addiction and promiscuity and being really tough physically and mentally," he said. "So it's not really like any chick flick I've ever seen." (Click to read another recent Witherspoon interview in which she opens up about her other new movie.)