HOLLYWOOD -- Reese Witherspoon thinks she knows the reason the new Johnny Cash bio-pic is called Walk The Line instead of Johnny! or The Man in Black.

"This is a movie about two people. It's the story of a love affair that was also a great musical partnership," says Witherspoon, who plays June Carter opposite Joaquin Phoenix's Johnny Cash.

"You don't often get to see the amazing woman behind the successful man; she usually gets the shaft in a bio-pic. But without June there wouldn't have been a Johnny," says Witherspoon.

Witherspoon, who has always claimed that she and Ryan Phillippe were destined for one another, claims the same is true of Carter and Cash.

"There's no question in my mind they were destined to be together. Theirs was not an easy relationship, but then most relationships aren't. What's important and what the film shows is that it was a true relationship. It was real."

Both Phoenix and Witherspoon were signed to Walk The Line 18 months before they began filming.

"I immediately started reading everything I could get my hands on and watching hours of tapes from the Grand Ole Opry and of the tours June was on where she met Johnny," says Witherspoon.

"I never even met Joaquin until our first rehearsal, and then we rehearsed for six months together."

This meant the two actors had two hours each day of vocal training with their coaches and a four-hour recording session in a sound studio.

"We had to sing our songs over and over again each day.

"I had only seven, but Joaquin had 26. We had to get the nuances June and Johnny brought to their songs."

She admits the recording sessions were particularly daunting.

"I'm darn good in my car and in the shower, but boy, when you get into a recording studio, it's scary.

"Still, I grew up (in Louisiana) listening to this music. I knew how it should sound."

Witherspoon had to learn to play the auto harp and Phoenix the guitar.

"Joaquin is a natural musician. I'm not. I used to sing my songs at home and for anyone who came over to visit. Ryan and the children know all my songs by heart."

Witherspoon says that before she teamed up with Cash, Carter "was essentially the filler act between the top-billed musicians like Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, Roy Orbison and Waylon Jennings.

"She was the comic relief, until Johnny made her an equal."

Witherspoon concedes that Carter and Cash were an easier fit than she and Phoenix.

"We're not similar performers at all. Joaquin is contemplative and very interior. I'm loud and in-your-face.

"We had some difficult times, but it was because we wanted the best for the film."

Witherspoon says that John Carter Cash, the son of June and Johnny, is the film's biggest fan.

"He has been effusive in his praise of Joaquin and me. It would have been so terrible if the family hadn't liked it. I think the prospect of the movie was scarier for them than it was for us."

She says the Cash family gave her "a couple of things of June's that were special to them, so they are all the more special to me."


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