Reese Witherspoon didn't understand what homosexuality was until she moved to Los Angeles

Reese Witherspoon admits she was naive until she moved to Los Angeles. Photo / Getty Images

Reese Witherspoon "didn't understand what homosexuality was" until she moved to Los Angeles for her film career.

The Little Fires Everywhere star has said she was brought up in a sheltered environment where none of her family spoke to her about sexuality, and so she had to learn about the LGBT community while at an audition in LA.

She said: "That great experience of being able to look at a time that was actually 30 years ago and think: 'I was a teenager then. What did my mom say about sexuality, race, class? What were the things that I was told that maybe were true or not true? How was I insensitive?'

"No one spoke to me about sexuality when I was a teenager. I didn't understand what homosexuality was. My grandparents didn't explain it. My parents didn't explain it. I had to learn from somebody I met on an audition in Los Angeles."

Reese even admitted that a scene in the Hulu show - in which she plays Elena Richardson - is inspired by her grandmother, who told her "homosexuality is very rare".

She added during a conversation with Regina King for Variety's Actors on Actors series:

"We incorporated some of the conversation I had with my grandmother afterward. She said: 'Homosexuality is very rare, Reese. That's not a thing that happens very often.' And we put it in the script. [My character] Elena says it because that's what was said to me in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1994."

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Actors on Actors at home: Reese Witherspoon and Regina King reunite to discuss how Hollywood has changed in the past 20 years, staying productive amid a pandemic, and the importance of diversity in storytelling.

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Meanwhile, Reese previously admitted she moved to Los Angeles from her hometown in Tennessee because she wanted to escape the "very conservative" society she grew up in.

The Big Little Lies star explained: "When I would go back home I was always the person who comes from Los Angeles with all the crazy ideas.

"I grew up in a very conservative family and a very conservative society, so I have always challenged the ideas and the belief systems that I grew up with.

"That's probably why I moved so far away - to meet people who have similar ideas to my own."