'SWEET' AND SENSIBLE WITH A NEW FILM EXPECTED TO OPEN BIG, REESE WITHERSPOON ISN'T LETTING HER GROWING CACHET IN HOLLYWOOD GO TO HER HEAD.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

In the middle of a conversation with Reese Witherspoon about ``Sweet Home Alabama,'' her new romantic comedy, the young actress figures it's high time to deflate the next-big-thing drift of, oh, every interview she's done for the past year.

``I am endlessly fascinated with myself,'' she chirps with the convincing comic irony that made her a critic's darling in the likes of ``Election'' and ``Pleasantville,'' and a bona fide movie star in the 2001 hit ``Legally Blonde.'' ``Can we talk about me a little bit more? I have a few more things to say about myself, so could you come home with me after this? Let's just have some dinner, and we'll talk about me, and we can just talk about me some more over dessert.''

This would not be so funny if the 26-year-old Witherspoon were anything like your stereotypical aspiring actress. But ever since her first appearance as a love-struck adolescent in the acclaimed coming-of-age drama ``The Man in the Moon,'' the practical, well-educated daughter of Nashville medical professionals has prioritized artistic aspiration and family (she's married to actor Ryan Phillippe and they have a 3-year-old daughter, Ava) over the baser ambitions of celebrity and big bucks.

So, when ``Legally Blonde'' grossed nearly $100 million last year - most all of it due to the ditsy charm of Witherspoon's performance as a Beverly Hills bubblehead who makes the grade at Harvard Law School - it catapulted the decade-plus show-biz veteran into an entirely new realm of fame, power and money.

But although the status change has been a predominantly positive one, with such fortune comes certain raised expectations.

``Alabama,'' her first job since ``Blonde'' hit (the remake of ``The Importance of Being Earnest,'' released in the spring, was filmed before ``Blonde'' opened), is, if anything, compounding the pressure. The Touchstone Pictures release - in which Witherspoon plays an up-and-coming fashion designer whose engagement to the mayor of New York's son is complicated by her long-over-in-all-but-the-legal-sense marriage to a good ol' Dixie boy - was originally being sold with a full-figure pose of the petite blond actress. Then, in recent weeks, the posters were changed to a Reese head shot, a sure sign of the Disney division's marketeer's confidence in her charisma.

With, of course, the implication that it better pay off at the box office.

``Mmmh. Just a big head!'' says a laughing Witherspoon, who obviously uses her prodigious sense of humor as a kind of steam-release valve. ``Yeah, it is a lot of pressure. All I can say is that I've worked really hard and tried to do my best, and if it all went south tomorrow, I'd still be the same person I am today, and I feel really confident about that.

``But I am happy with the success that I've experienced. It certainly isn't lost on me, and I do appreciate the place I'm at now. It really creates a lot of wonderful opportunities for me: I get to work with directors I've always wanted to now, and writers, and produce my own material. I was doing that before 'Legally Blonde,' but I couldn't get a movie financed just on me, myself. This facilitates that kind of thing happening.''

According to ``Alabama'' director Andy Tennant, who has known Witherspoon since they worked together on the 1992 television movie ``Desperate Choices: To Save My Child,'' she's taking to her new heat with unbelievable cool.

``It's kind of fun to be with someone as they're riding the wave,'' says Tennant, whose new film was - just to add a little more pressure - the first to shoot in Manhattan following last year's terrorist attacks. ``But at the same time, you're a mom; you have a 2-year-old who doesn't care if you're a movie star or not - it's still 'Where's breakfast?' I mean, all of the things, and a husband and a career. ... She just is handling it really well, all of that and being a movie star and picking what movies to do and having to face the media and people judging you for - what? The way she looks, the way she acts, who she's married to, what she's doing ...

``I can't imagine the noise in her head. Yet she comes to the set, she's good-natured, she's a hard worker, she's smart and accessible.''

On top of it

``Alabama'' co-star Candice Bergen, no slouch at embodying capable women herself, sounds even more impressed by Witherspoon's apparent ability to have it all and handle it.

``I've been asked if I have any advice for Reese, and I said 'Are you nuts?' '' the erstwhile Murphy Brown discloses. ``What could you possibly tell her? She's so on top of it. She's so poised and so talented and incredibly focused and disciplined and professional. It's really almost unsettling. I was such a screw-up for so long, it's really amazing to see these young women who just know where they're going, and they're kind to people, and they don't have any bull. Reese travels light.''

Witherspoon is quick to share credit for any admirable qualities.

``It's a lot of juggling,'' she admits. ``But I'm fortunate to have a lot of wonderful people in my life, workwise and also friendwise, that are really supportive and caring and helpful. I really have invested a lot of energy and time into relationships, and they've been very beneficial to me.

``It does take a huge support system to be a working mother. I think every working mother will tell you that.''

Although the folks at home are a big part of that arrangement - she flies back to Tennessee a lot, and Witherspoon's brother was her driver during the Georgia portion of ``Alabama's'' shoot - her husband is her primary source of stability.

The marriage isn't perfect, Witherspoon readily and quite forthrightly acknowledges. She says that she was as surprised as she looked when, while presenting an award at last spring's Oscar ceremony, Phillippe ad-libbed a crack about how she made more money than he did. And the actor, who can be seen in the current indie film hit ``Igby Goes Down,'' recently revealed that the couple attends therapy as a way of strengthening their marriage.

Frankly, though, the union sounds like it's as tight as it could possibly be.

``Well, he's imperative,'' she says of Phillippe. ``It's imperative that I have his support, and he is such a great husband and a great father. He just really picks up whenever I can't be there. He's always there, and vice versa. We made that commitment to each other a long time ago, so it's really nice to see somebody really honoring their commitments in that direction. We're very happy, very blessed.''

'Blonde' again

But back to that money thing for a minute ...

Witherspoon reportedly banked a cool $15 million for the upcoming ``Legally Blonde'' sequel, ``Red, White and Blonde,'' in which her fashion plate Elle goes to Washington. Not only that, her company, Type A Films, is co-producing.

You've got to ask how it feels for someone who was in it for art's sake for so long to hit the big payday.

``It brings a certain peace of mind, certainly about your children and their future, which is nice,'' she confirms. ``But y'know, it's odd for me. This is very much a Southern girl in a Los Angeles situation, because I was raised never to talk about money, and I think it's really impolite. But the graciousness of it is not lost on me; I certainly appreciate it, and I plan on working very hard.''

With any luck, Reese Witherspoon will be able to continue her success trajectory without being consumed by it. She does have a secret weapon in that department, and it would be no surprise if it comes to mind whenever she passes one of those big-head billboards.

``I think that the hardest part is when you get comfortable,'' she reckons. ``It's never good to be comfortable, you should always be ill at ease. 'How the heck am I going to get through this? How am I going to pull this off?' That's what's exciting, I think.''

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Juggling motherhood and megastardom, `Sweet Home Alabama's' Witherspoon is more than the sum of her parts

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