Chris is sexy, Tom’s intense, says Reese Witherspoon

Reese Witherspoon talks about her hunky co-stars in her new flick

Tell us something about your upcoming movie…
I’d just finished “Water For Elephants” when Fox approached me for “This Means War”. I thought it was definitely a departure, and also an opportunity to be in an action film. I hadn’t really done that and I thought that if I was ever going to do an action film I’d want it to have elements of comedy in it, so it was kind of perfect.

Those are the action films I like… “Mr. & Mrs. Smith”, “Bad Boys”, “Beverly Hills Cop”… movies that make you laugh, but also deliver action. I really thought that this movies was appealing and I really liked the idea of working with a few great guys.

On screen it looks like you were having a lot of fun….
It was. Literally, at one point of time my character is dancing around in her underwear at her apartment.

It was a moment where we were saying, ‘What are we going to do with this scene?’ It was kind of boring, me just walking around my apartment while these guys were spying, and then he just said, ‘What was your favourite song in the 90s?’ I said, ‘Oh I love that song by Montell Jordan -“This Is How We Do It,” and he said, ‘Great, start singing it!’ It just turned into this funny little dancing, action moment.

Apart from the dancing scene, did you get to improvise much through the movie?
Yes, during the whole movie. Of course a lot of it is written – we have a great writer/producer, Simon Kinberg, who also did “Mr & Mrs. Smith – and he would construct great scenes, but then a lot of times we’d get on set and just improvise. But that made for great fun.

Tell us about your co-stars Chris Pine and Tom Hardy
Chris is totally all-American – a witty, charming, self-possessed, confident man. He has an ease about himself that’s really appealing and he’s very sexy – he almost has a Cary Grant-type quality, sort of effortlessly charming. Tom is a very intense, focused actor. His mind races with thoughts and ideas. He was writing his own lines and helping us construct narrative. He’s smart – always adding to the process

So now you’ve got your first action film under your belt, how did it feel, and did you pick up any new skills while shooting for this movie?
I got to work with a flame-thrower, which was cool, hang off the side of a car, climb up onto a platform, I did a lot of running with the bad guys shooting at us… I’m not used to that sort of thing but, wow, it was so much fun.