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"You hear people talk about how wonderful the '50s were because everything was so simple and pure. Even if that was true -- and I don't believe it for a moment -- I could never have lived back then," she insists.
"Those poodle skirts, bullet bras and page-boy hairstyles are the most hideous fashions imaginable."
Witherspoon is speaking from experience. These are the fashions she had to wear for her new movie Pleasantville, which opens Friday.
She plays a '90s teenager who is miraculously transported into a 1950s television sitcom. It's a world of twin beds, bathrooms without toilets and teen romance without sex.
But not for too much longer. Witherspoon's character decides to educate the blissfully ignorant folks of Pleasantville.
"I thank heaven that I live in a world where I can be as socially free as I want to be. There were so many restrictions, especially for women, in the 1950s."
Social freedom comes with its drawbacks.
"Women today are defined by sexuality. That empowers us, but it also places too much emphasis on looks."
Witherspoon admits it took her a few years in Hollywood to learn how to avoid the pitfalls that lie in wait for young stars.
"It's so easy to fall into the routine of going to all the right parties with all the right people. It may make you popular, but it's not what makes you a respected actress.
"Fortunately, Ryan came into my life at the right time. We've been really a good influence for each other."
Witherspoon has been living with Ryan Phillippe, the star of I Know What You Did Last Summer and 54, for almost three years.
This summer, they played lovers on screen in Cruel Intentions, a modern version of Dangerous Liaisons.
"I play the Michelle Pfeiffer role and Ryan plays the John Malkovich part.
"Our love affair is the emotional heart of the movie," she says.
"My first intention was to turn the film down, but Ryan pleaded with me to take the role. I was worried about a real couple playing a screen couple, but I don't think we're that well known as a couple for it to harm the movie."
Witherspoon has been offered roles in most of the current crop of teen slasher films, including Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legends -- but declined.
"I did my horror film and it was not an experience I care to repeat," says Witherspoon, referring to the suspense thriller Fear she made with Mark Wahlberg.
"It had nothing to do with Mark. All that screaming and cowering and being tormented is not fulfilling."
Witherspoon made her film debut at 14 in the coming-of-age film Man in the Moon.
The film was shot in Nashville, where her father and mother are prominent physicians.
"I had no aspirations of being an actress. I had always just accepted that I would be a doctor of some sort.
"There was an open audition for movie extras and I went some friends.
"I'd done some modelling and some local commercials, but I'd never acted."
Her audition so impressed director Robert Mulligan that he began screen testing her for a small speaking role and eventually offered her the lead.
"I was immediately hooked. I couldn't believe how supportive my parents were, though I know in their hearts they still wished I'd gone into medicine."
Witherspoon soon earned roles in A Far Off Place, Jack the Bear, Freeway, Wildflower and most recently Twilight, where she played Susan Sarandon's daughter.
Next up is Election, in which she plays an ambitious student who is determined to be elected class president.
Her plans are thwarted by one of her teachers, played by Matthew Broderick.