Reese Witherspoon, an Academy Award winner for her 2006 performance in “I Walk the Line,” will receive the Palm Springs International Film Festival Chairman’s Award Jan. 3 in recognition of her more recent work.
“Reese Witherspoon delivers one of her finest performances in ‘Wild,’” festival chairman Harold Matzner said.
“Witherspoon brilliantly brings to life the true story of Cheryl Strayed, adding yet another iconic performance to her impressive 20-year span of characters.”
The Chairman’s Award is distinguished from the Desert Palm Achievement Acting awards and the Career Achievement Award by a filmmaker’s intangible elements.
Matzner said Witherspoon is being recognized primarily for her starring role in “Wild.” She also produced that film and the acclaimed “Gone Girl,” featuring Rosamund Pike, who is receiving the Palm Springs International Film Festival’s Breakthrough Performance Award.
Witherspoon also appears in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Inherent Vice,” opening Dec. 12, and Philippe Falardeau’s “The Good Lie,” which was released in October.
In “Wild,” Witherspoon plays a woman trying to turn her life around after years of reckless behavior, heroin addiction and the destruction of her marriage. With no wilderness survival experience, she sets out to hike more than a thousand miles on the Pacific Crest Trail on her own.
Witherspoon’s other film credits include “Mud,” “Water for Elephants,” “Election,” “Legally Blonde,” “Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde,” “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Vanity Fair, “Pleasantville” and “The Man in the Moon.” She portrayed June Carter Cash in her Oscar-winning performance in “Walk the Line.”
Past recipients of the Chairman’s Award include Ben Affleck, George Clooney, Richard Gere, Tom Hanks, Dustin Hoffman and Nicole Kidman.
The Awards Gala at the Palm Springs Convention Center also will recognize previously announced honorees Richard Linklater, Julianne Moore, Eddie Redmayne and J.K. Simmons.
Tickets are sold out. Platinum and concierge passes also are sold out for the entire festival, which runs Jan. 2-12 at theaters throughout Palm Springs.
For more information, call (760) 322-2930 or visit www.psfilmfest.org.
Source: The Desert Sun
