Reese Witherspoon's Hollywood stardom hasn't come without a price. "Sometimes I will sit in the car and cry," the 35-year-old Water for Elephants star tells Vogue's May issue. "Because I can't get out. That's the only thing: I mourn the loss of my privacy."
Still, the newly married actress says she'd never trade the "interesting life" her Hollywood career has provided her. "With whatever I've lost, I've gained tenfold in life experience."
The mother of two–Ava, 11, and Deacon, 7– admits that like all working mothers, it's an ongoing effort to find the balance between her professional and personal life. "We have a lot of family meetings," she says. "'Mom's going to be away and coming home on the weekends. How does everybody feel about that?' It's always military operations around here. Lots of different moving parts."
Witherspoon's Water for Elephants co-star Robert Pattinson, 24, says of his on-screen love interest: "She's thought of as America's Sweetheart. And she kind of is in a lot of ways. But I think that she's a lot bawdier than that, a lot more raucous… She's tough."
Regardless of how Water for Elephants is received by fans and critics, Witherspoon is grateful for the experience. "I spent six months of my life last year with an elephant. Every day! Are you kidding me? And in leotards with sparkles all over them. I mean, come on! That's like a little girl's fantasy."
