Reese Witherspoon has shared some memorable interactions with Robert De Niro and Denzel Washington since she first started out in the entertainment industry.
While it’s on Jimmy Kimmel Live in Thursday, Your place or mine star detailed that one of her first auditions was with De Niro and Martin Scorsese for the 1991 film. Cape Fear. “I was so scared when I walked into the room. I didn’t know who Robert De Niro was, so I was standing outside talking to the receptionist and she said, ‘You know, he’s the most important actor of our time,’” Witherspoon recalled. “I was 14. … I never saw Good boyslike I’ve never seen Godfatherso it totally gets on my nerves.’
The Legally blonde the actress said that when she walked into the audition room, she couldn’t say any of her lines and that De Niro had to say them for her. She laughed, noting that she didn’t get the part.
“He had to finish the lines for me and then I auditioned for him 10 years later,” she said. “I thought he’d never remember that I failed that audition, and he said, ‘I remember you.’ I was like “Me?” He said, “Oh yeah, you’re the one who couldn’t say the word.”
A few years later, Witherspoon continued, she interned for the film Devil in a blue dress, featuring Washington to learn the other sides of the business. Some of her job requirements include answering the phone and parking the actor’s Porsche when he comes in, “which is not a good idea for a 17-year-old kid with a brand new driver’s license. … Oh my god, I took all the gears out of gear.”
The Big Little Lies the actress said that years later they saw each other at a wedding and Washington said he heard her tell the Porsche story. He then revealed to Witherspoon that while she was filming Water for elephants, the actor’s daughter was the crew member taking her costumes in and out of her trailer. “I thought, ‘This is amazing,'” she added. “So there was like this full circle [moment].”