Reese Witherspoon gets animated

By Roger Moore

Some movies you do for the cash. Some you do for Oscar glory.

And some, if you’re Reese Witherspoon, you do for the kids.

She’s done many a hit, from “Legally Blonde” to last winter’s “Four Christmases.” She’s been a critic’s choice since “Election.” And she has her Oscar for “Walk the Line.”

So her reasons for doing “Monsters vs. Aliens”: her daughter Ava, 9, and son, Deacon, 5, “a movie they could wear the funny 3-D glasses to see.” It’s an animated 3-D comedy about Earth-bound monsters released from government custody to battle invading aliens. Even a movie that has Mom’s character transforming from an unassuming bride into Ginormica, a gigantic “monster” woman has its teachable moments.

“Sometimes we walk away from movies and I quiz them about them. ‘What did you think that movie was about?’ I did that after ‘Monsters vs. Aliens,’ and my little girl goes, ‘I think it’s about never letting anybody underestimate you!’

“Wow. Gold star for her. She’s the one who should be doing my interviews on this one!”

“Then my son said, ‘Make sure octopus aliens don’t eat our planet!’”

Witherspoon giggles. Boys will be boys, after all. But she saw role-model potential in Susan, the “little woman” who grows into someone more substantial in the film, which opens Friday.

“Susan has a great storyline,” Witherspoon says. “I knew if we did this right that she could be very inspiring to a lot of kids. She’s somebody who has a not very high opinion of herself at the very beginning, not wanting anything much for herself out of life. But she takes this journey, becomes gigantic, and starts to see her inner resources as her own greatest asset. I love playing somebody who is in a struggle with her own identity. Kids connect with that, I think.

“It’s not her size that matters. It’s the strength she finds in her personality that’s what’s cool about Susan.”

Another plus to making the movie was that she would get to re-team with Paul Rudd, her co-star in “Overnight Delivery,” back in 1998. Rudd plays Susan’s self-absorbed, career-obsessed weatherman fianc in “Monsters.” Until, that is, she becomes Ginormica. They recorded their scenes together for the animators.

“Just being in the booth with him made the scenes funnier,” Witherspoon says. “Nobody can deliver a line like him. He’s not afraid of being an idiot. Paul’s a guy who was born missing that humility gene.”

Rudd recalls being impressed with Ms. W. long before she was a household name.

“I remember watching ‘Man in the Moon’ and thinking, ‘That girl is one of the most naturally gifted kids I have ever seen,’” Rudd says of Witherspoon’s first film, made when she was just 14 (she turned 33 Sunday). “There’s not many careers that would track from that to ‘Fear’ to Tracy Flick in ‘Election’ to ‘Legally Blonde’ to ‘Walk the Line.’ She is amazing.”

That mutual admiration society will be honored when they team up again for a new romantic comedy that Witherspoon will star in. “How Do You Know” is the working title of a film that has Witherspoon learning a “secret” new skill — “It’s not another musical instrument” is all she’ll say about that — and will also star Owen Wilson.