Ryan Phillippe believes age was the the problem with his marriage to Reese Witherspoon.The star of ABC's "Secrets and Lies" opened up about his former union to the Oscar winner on "Larry King Now," with King inquiring if being a show business couple was the reason behind their demise."I think more of the problem was age, you know, when we got together so young," explained Phillippe, now 40, being sure to refer to Witherspoon as his ex."We got into disagreements over who was going to play Annette. But this was early Katie, and I thought we needed someone with a little more strength of character. And then, literally, I was hanging out with Ryan one night and I was like, 'What about your girlfriend? And I literally got down on my knees and begged her: 'Please, it'll be 15 days, you'll be great.' And Reese was like, 'I'll do it.
And then I was on a movie set and the female producer handed me a book; she said, "My company's not going to buy this, but maybe you and [producing partner Bruna Papandrea] should buy ." We read it overnight and were both just like, "Oh my God!
" It has the juiciness of a crime, so that part pulls you forward and gets you invested in the characters.
She came into the audition as the character and didn't show me that there was Selma; I said, 'This is the person.'"5. Rather than reboot it or any of that, I was like, 'This really could live on the stage.' If you look at the staging of , it's like a play.
Ryan wasn't particularly worried about shooting such dark material. I remember Ryan coming up to me when we were shooting, and he goes, 'When you break down this movie, it's really about me wanting to have anal sex with my sister.' [When Sebastian and Sarah Michelle's character, Kathryn, make their bet, she says, 'You can put it anywhere.'] I said, 'Well, that's an interesting way of looking at it. "I'll tell you this: I'm adapting it for the stage. It's mostly two people in a scene, three people in the scene.
"I was just kind of floundering career-wise cause I wasn't making things I was passionate about, I was just kinda working.
It was really clear the audiences weren't responding to anything I was putting out there." Reese Witherspoon is yet again changing up her Southern belle image in her latest film, "Wild." The Oscar winner, who covers the October issue of Vogue, opened up to the magazine about what her raw portrayal of solo hiker Cheryl Strayed says about her and her career. Reese Witherspoon is yet again changing up her Southern belle image in her latest film, "Wild." The Oscar winner, who covers the October issue of Vogue, opened up to the magazine about what her raw portrayal of solo hiker Cheryl Strayed says about her and her career. (Nardine Saad)Phillippe also told King that that he and his ex remain "very much" friends and are devoted to their kids.
"I think it can create issues -- two people in this industry -- because there's so much noise that goes along with it."The couple met at a mutual friend's birthday party, then costarred in 1999's "Cruel Intentions." They married in June 1999, while they were both in their 20s.
Daughter Ava, now 15, arrived three months after they said "I do," and they later had a son, Deacon, now 11.
He and Witherspoon announced their separation in October 2006 amid cheating rumors and their divorce was finalized in the middle of 2008."The Lincoln Lawyer" star went on to date a slew of actresses and had another daughter with model-actress Alexis Knapp in 2011.