Reese Witherspoon told she was ‘totally wrong’ for Gone Girl role by director

Reese Witherspoon said she had her first real “ego check” when she was told she wasn’t right for a role in Gone Girl.

Reese Witherspoon says David Fincher told her she was “totally wrong” for a role in Gone Girl.

Despite calls from author Gillian Flynn to cast the Legally Blonde star in the role of Amy Dunne, which went to Rosamund Pike, the director of the 2014 movie adaptation of the psychological thriller stood his ground.

Witherspoon recounted on the Las Culturistas podcast: “David sat me down – and this is not on David – but David’s like, ‘You’re totally wrong for this part, and I’m not putting you in it.’”

She continued: “I had all these conversations with the writer Gillian Flynn, and she was like, ‘No, I’d really like you to do it.’

“But he was like, ‘You’re wrong.’”

The 49-year-old actress – whose production company produced the title – admitted that was the first time she’d had an “ego check”.

She said: “That was, first of all, an ego check for me.

“It was like, ‘No, you’re not right for everything.’ And he was right. He was totally right.”

Praising the filmmaker, she said: “Fincher just killed it, and Rosamund Pike is so diabolical and Ben Affleck is sort of the rube on the other side of it.”

The Hello Sunshine founder is grateful to Fincher for teaching her the importance of stepping back “when you’re supposed to” as a producer.

She added: “Producing also means get out of the way when you’re supposed to.

“Do your job to promote, continue to pull people together, continue to build creative groups so that the ultimate result is the best work that it could possibly be. So that was a lesson to me.”

The box office hit earned Pike numerous nominations including the Academy Award for Best Actress, the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Actress, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role.