According to June Carter Cash's daughter, the country singer Carlene Carter, there were bits of her mother that existed in Reese Witherspoon even before the actress embarked on her June Carter Cash immersion course. "When Reese smiles, it's like she's smiling from inside - my mom was like that," said Carter, in a recent telephone interview. In 2004, she spent several hours with Witherspoon at the kitchen table of her half-brother John Carter Cash's Nashville home offering up scores of "Mama-isms" - as well as a pair of frilly white pantaloons that her mother wore onstage for comic effect and that Witherspoon incorporated into her wardrobe for the movie.
Before she died, in 2003, Carter Cash had already expressed her satisfaction about the casting of Witherspoon. Others, though, said Carter, had their doubts about whether Witherspoon was up to the dramatic challenge of capturing the singer's famous soulful, earthbound essence. "They'd say, 'Well, she's blond and she's this and that,' " said Carter. "I'd tell them, 'Well, you know what? Until a month ago, I was blond, too.' "
Margy Rochlin - New York Times News Service (Sep 10, 2005)