Reese Witherspoon didn’t have “a particularly great experience” while making the 1996 thriller Fear.

In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar published on Wednesday, the 47-year-old – who was 19 at the time of making the film – revealed she “didn’t have control” over a scene in which her character is pleasured by Mark Wahlberg and has an orgasm on a roller-coaster.

Noting that she asked for a stunt double for the below-the-waist shots, Reese said, “It wasn’t explicit in the script that that’s what was going to happen, so that was something that I think the director (James Foley) thought of on his own and then asked me on set if I would do it, and I said no. It wasn’t a particularly great experience.”

The Legally Blonde star admitted that while she wasn’t “traumatised” by the experience, it was “formative” for her in understanding the power dynamic of Hollywood at the time.

“It made me understand where my place was in the pecking order of filmmaking,” the actor stated.

Reflecting on her producing career, she continued, “I think it’s another one of those stories that made me want to be an agent for change and someone who maybe can be in a better leadership position to tell stories from a female perspective instead of from the male gaze.”

Elsewhere in the interview, the Big Little Lies star revealed that she “went hard” for the leading roles in Clueless and Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet.

“Oh my God, I wanted to do Romeo + Juliet so badly, so badly,” she stated. “Of course, Claire Danes was amazing, but it was devastating to me that I didn’t get it after screen tests and getting really close.”

– Cover Media