Reese Witherspoon Reveals She Had Panic Attacks for Weeks Before Filming 'Wild'

Reese Witherspoon is getting candid about her experience with panic attacks in a brand new interview.

The 45-year-old actress and producer had a conversation with Tracee Ellis Ross about what she experienced just weeks ahead of starting to film 2014′s Wild.

Click inside to read what Reese Witherspoon shared…

Wild was based on Cheryl Strayed’s memoir, and focused on a broken woman who pieces her life together by hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.

“I was so scared to do that,” Reese admitted, saying it was the biggest acting challenge of her career. “I had hypnosis, I was so scared. I was having panic attacks for three weeks before I started.”

She continued, “There was the nudity, sexuality, and drug-use aspect, but also being alone on camera with no other actors. I hadn’t ever been alone in scenes for days and days. There were probably 25 days of the shoot where I had no other actor opposite me. It was just me and a camera and a backpack. I was like, ‘Is this going to be so boring?’”

Reese added of her connection to Cheryl‘s book, saying, “[It] was so beautiful and sacred to me because it spoke to me so deeply about how we as women have to save ourselves. There’s no mother or father coming to save us. There’s no spouse. I thought it was radical that at the end of the film, she ends up with no family, no money, no job, no partner, and she’s happy.”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever work that hard again, but it changed me on a cellular level.”

If you didn’t see, the trailer for Reese‘s show, The Morning Show, was just released.