London Film Festival 2014: Wild Gala

Reese Witherspoon presents her hiking epic

Like an unstoppable force determined to rid journalists of the last of their style and grace, the rain continues to plague London Film Festival. Last night it was the turn of Reese Witherspoon and the talent behind her latest film, Wild, to hike up the spongy red carpet for the film's European premiere.

Witherspoon's newest film is an adapation of Cheryl Strayed's memoir of the same title, documenting how she left her life behind to walk the 1,000 mile Pacific Crest Trail. As in any good road movie, Cheryl finds herself with all manner of new and interesting companions on the trail and comes into some prickly situations to boot.{London Film Festival 2014: Wild}

Speaking to Empire at the event, Witherspoon talked about her preparation for the role of Cheryl, or rather the complete lack of it.

“In the film she never prepared, so part of it was that I was not prepared. Jean-Marc Vallée wanted to make sure that I wasn't exercising and I wasn't hiking so that I would look authentic in the film.”

So did this striving for authenticity mean that Reese spent time with the real Cheryl?

“I spoke to her so much. I flew to Portland because she lives there and we would talk. We spent about a week or so, just every day, talking and going over the script and the feelings that she was having. And she was there almost every day on the set. So that was really helpful.”

Alongside Witherspoon at the premiere was Cheryl Strayed herself, and screenwriter Nick Hornby. Also there was one of the producers of Wild, Bruna Papandrea, who took some time to speak to us about the perils of adapting a story from real life.

“I think it's very different when you're adapting a fictional novel as opposed to a memoir; that's why we involved Cheryl along the way. My job as producer was to pick the screenwriter and director to protect the integrity of the book and that's what Reese wanted too. Jean Marc is a very unique director, in that he's prepared to make a movie in a very natural, kind of organic way, which best serves the story that we were trying to tell. I think that's very fortunate. ”

As well as Reese Witherspoon, Wild stars Laura Dern, Thomas Sadoski, Gaby Hoffmann, Kevin Rankin and Michiel Huisman and will be released in the UK on January 16.

Reporting by Joshua Hammond

from Empire News