Laura Jean Reese Witherspoon was born on March 22, 1976 in Nashville, Tennessee, where she grew up.

Reese's acting career began virtually by accident. In the early '90s, when Reese was about fourteen years old, she heard that some extras were needed for a movie that was filming near Nashville. She just wanted to make some extra money with a non-speaking role, but she ended up auditioning and winning the lead role of Dani Trant in the film, called The Man in the Moon. Thus began Reese's acting career, successful from the very begining.

She followed her first film with a couple of made-for TV movies (Wildflower and Desperate Choices: To Save My Child), and then continued with key leading roles in films such as Jack the Bear and A Far Off Place.

Up until 1994, Reese had never really taken on an adult role, having always played a child in films. So she took a lead role in S. F. W., alongside Stephen Dorff. Reese played Wendy Pfister in the film, in which a group of people are held hostage for 36 days and become famous because of it. Roles like this one were followed by Overnight Delivery, Fear and Freeway. Reese was definitely taking on a lot of bad-girl roles, and clearly wanted to expand her acting into different areas.

In Pleasantville her character's transition from bad girl to good girl almost immitates her real life in the sense of the roles that she was taking on. In Pleasantville Reese played Jennifer, who learns a lot about life when she and her brother (Tobey Maguire) are accidentaly dropped into a 1950s TV show, where they become Mary Sue and Bud Parker.

Reese is currently playing a full-out good girl in Cruel Intentions, in which her character, Annette Hargrove, has vowed to stay a virgin until marriage. That is until she meets the charming Sebastian Valmont (played by Ryan).

Up next for Reese is American Psycho, which she is currently filming in Toronto, Canada. It's the story of a seemingly normal guy (Christian Bale) who turns out to be a murderer.