HOLLYWOOD -- Reese Witherspoon is doing a lot of weeping these days, and not on camera.

"My daughter (Ava Elizabeth Phillippe) is going to preschool. For me that means lunch boxes, backpacks and waterworks," Witherspoon says.

"She's just three years old and only goes for a few hours, so I can just see what kind of basketcase I'll be when she has to go to school in a couple of years."

Witherspoon and her husband, actor Ryan Phillippe, met at her 21st birthday party in June 1997. By the end of that summer they moved in together. They were engaged in December 1998 but waited until the following March to make it public. At the same time they announced they were expecting a child. They were married in June 1999 and their daughter was born three months later.

"We didn't plan to have a child this early in our relationship," Witherspoon says, "but I feel it is always the right time when something happens for you -- especially something as wonderful as a child."

She made her film debut in 1991 in the family drama The Man In The Moon.

Films such as Freeway, Twilight, Pleasantville, Cruel Intentions and Election established her as one of the finest actors of her generation, but it wasn't until last year's runaway hit Legally Blonde that she scored the box-office rewards she deserved.

Early this year she starred opposite Rupert Everett and Colin Firth in The Importance Of Being Earnest. On Friday she headlines Disney's romantic comedy Sweet Home Alabama.

The project was originally tailored for Charlize Theron, but she pulled out to star in the thriller Trapped, which opened Friday.

"When Charlize left, we drew up a list of possible replacements,"

director Andy Tennant says. "That was a week before Legally Blonde opened and Reese wasn't even on the list. (The next week) there was no list. She was the only choice."

Witherspoon earned $1 million US for Legally Blonde, her biggest payday to that point.

Disney wooed her with $5 million for Sweet Home Alabama and she will receive $11 million for her Legally Blonde sequel -- Red, White And Blonde -- which begins filming in November.

In Sweet Home Alabama, Witherspoon plays Melanie Carmichael, a smalltown girl from rural Alabama who reinvents herself as a New York fashion designer.

When she returns home to tidy up her past once and for all, Melanie discovers she's still a southern girl at heart.

Witherspoon can relate. She herself grew up in Nashville and reinvented herself in Los Angeles.

"I understand where Melanie is coming from, completely. Growing up, I was terribly embarrassed to say I was from the South.

"People would say cruel things like, 'You're 15. Do you have any children yet? Have you dated any of your cousins?' I had to find dignity in my upbringing, which is what Melanie has to do."

Witherspoon says it was through "travel and meeting people from different cultures, and working with far more tolerant and perceptive people, that I realized how wonderful my upbringing really was."

Witherspoon's parents are both doctors.

"I think a part of my parents still wishes I'd go to med school, but they see how happy I am as an actress and that makes them happy."

Witherspoon says she is pleased Sweet Home Alabama "celebrates, rather than ridicules, southern eccentricity. My family is so very eccentric but they also have those great southern values ... Southerners have sincere concern for everyone around them. Sweet Home Alabama shows that."

Witherspoon refuses to talk about the recent reports in the gossip press that her marriage is on shaky ground. Phillippe has denied the rumours.

Witherspoon will only say, "It's so not true. It doesn't deserve discussing."

Tennant, who has known Witherspoon for 10 years, says the rumours stem from envy.

"Reese and Ryan are beautiful, talented and successful," the director says. "There are those people who don't want them to be happy as well, so they write these kinds of stories. The gossip press want actors to be dysfunctional."

Witherspoon and Tennant had such fun working together on Sweet Home Alabama that they are developing another joint project.

Tennant, who co-writes all his films, says the movie is called Rogues Gallery and is "very much a kind of Romancing The Stone comedy adventure. I'll have the first draft of the screenplay ready for her to read before the end of the month."

Red, White And Blonde starts shooting in November for a July 4, 2003 release.


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