GIRL ON FIRE - ‘IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO MY CHILDREN IT WRECKS ME'

LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE STAR REESE WITHERSPOON ON MOTHERHOOD HER DREAM CO-STAR AND NOT BEING AFRAID TO BE DIFFERENT

- ALAN TANNER

Reese Witherspoon has done it again. The actress, producer and self-confessed bookworm has a reputation in Hollywood for spotting which books are going to be the next publishing sensation and snapping up the rights to make them into films or TV series.

She did it with Gone Girl, then with Big Little Lies and now she’s struck gold once more with her gripping adaptation of Celeste Ng’s bestseller, Little Fires Everywhere.

The 10-part drama has come at the perfect time, when we’re all looking for the next binge-watch to get addicted to.

Set in a picture-perfect community in Ohio in 1997, it follows two very different mothers – uptight journalist Elena (Witherspoon) and bohemian artist Mia (Kerry Washington). When the women clash over a legal battle that divides the town, secrets are unearthed and both families’ worlds are changed forever.

“The show looks into how there are different kinds of mothering and sometimes you find your mother in another woman, in another family,” Reese, 44, explains. “A lot of people have this feeling; that they are born into a family they don’t belong in. And that we are mentored and mothered by many different people as you travel through life.”

In her own life, Reese has three children. Ava, 20, and Deacon, 16, from her marriage to actor Ryan Phillippe, and a son, Tennessee, seven, with now-husband Jim Toth.

As she, like many parents in the current climate, juggles parenting with a demanding career, the Oscar winner reflects on how being a mum has changed her, and reveals how she almost followed a very different career path…