LOS ANGELES?Reese Witherspoon did not commit a slip of the tongue this time.

Last year, we reported that the actress made a very telling blunder which made her laugh so hard. She was talking about her movie ?Four Christmases? with Vince Vaughn, but instead said, ?The main reason I did this movie was to work with Jake. I mean ? Jake?? As in Jake Gyllenhaal, her boyfriend, of course.

Perhaps because Reese was now pitching her animated movie, ?Monsters vs. Aliens,? we got to talk more about her two kids? Ava, 9, and Deacon, 5.

Apparently, making an animated film has finally earned Reese some respect as an actress from her children with ex-husband, actor Ryan Phillippe.

?To say they liked the movie would be the understatement of the century,? she quipped when asked how much Ava and Deacon enjoyed ?Monsters??

?My children literally jump around the house all day long, talking about this movie, and saying?? Here Reese mimicked her young ones speaking in fast, hyper-excited voices: ?When can we see it again?? ?Can we see it in 3D?? ?OK, if we can?t see it in 3D, can we see it in 2D?? ?Can I bring my friend, Jonah?? ?Can I bring my friend, Laura??

Laughing, she proclaimed, ?I?ve never felt so good about a movie, ever.?

Girl turned giant

The mom was clearly elated that she finally made something that made her seem 10 feet taller, or in this case, 40 feet plus higher since she plays a girl turned giant, Ginormica, in ?Monsters??She said, ?I watched a screening with them and they were like, ?You don?t understand. This is going to be major in the third grade, mom.

Everyone?s going to be talking about the movie. It?s going to make me really cool.? So between this and being nominated for a Kids Choice Award, I?m enjoying this year at my house. Because every other year, I?m the biggest dork on earth. The kids go, ?Can you stop singing?? ?That?s really annoying?you can?t dance so stop.??

Asked if she stirs some excitement when she goes to her offspring?s school, Reese answered, ?Sometimes the kids get excited. Sometimes they?re like, ?Boring.? Once you?ve come enough times, they get very bored of you. ?Oh, that?s just Deacon?s mom. She?s bringing hot lunch again.? But the first couple of times I came to school, they were very excited. It was probably like if I ever saw Wonder Woman, Linda Carter, at my school when I was growing up. I would be very impressed.?

?No, I didn?t do any special voice training,? Reese clarified when queried if she attended any workshop to portray her character in the film which cleverly cast her and other thespians like Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett and Kiefer Sutherland as voice talents.

Voice training?I do think that doing ?Walk the Line? really helped me be aware of how my voice sounds to other people,? she emphasized as she brought up the movie in which she sang as country singer June Carter and hauled Golden Globe and Academy Award Best Actress trophies.

Reese narrated: ?I remember before I started ?Walk the Line,? they said, ?Do you want to do this movie?? I was like, ?Of course, and I?ll do the singing. It?s no big deal.? I sound fantastic in the shower. And every morning in the car, Carrie Underwood and I are like note for note.

But then I actually had to stand in front of a microphone and sing. It was really a rude awakening to me how incredibly terrible I was without any training. So it took seven months to train my voice and it made me completely appreciate how hard these singers work. In that sense, I had a good idea of how my voice sounds and how I can change my voice.

?The ?Monsters?? role, in which her California girl, Susan, undergoes a transformation, posed a different vocal challenge to the actress.

?I go from being kind of a docile character, very meek, to being this amazing kind of female superhero. They wanted me to sound like an action star. They were like, ?OK, say ?I am Ginormica!??So I said it. They were like, ?No, no, no.? They wanted me to sound more like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone. That was really hard for me. I have never spoken like that in a movie. So I had to watch Bruce Willis movies. They also showed me how to do it. Finally, I got it.?

On whether she sometimes feels invincible like Ginormica, she replied, ?Every time I?m working out at the gym and I don?t want to do it anymore, I think, I gave birth to two children. I can pretty much endure any kind of pain there is. Really, it makes you feel kind of invincible?that you got through it. You?re like, ?Oh my God, did that really happen?? Yeah, being a mom makes you feel all powerful.?

Raising Deacon

The movie?s underlying themes of female empowerment and male comeuppance prompted a reporter to ask how she is raising Deacon.

?I love my son and he has a huge influence on me to do this kind of movie where it has monsters and those things,? she began.

?It has made him incredibly happy. I get a lot of questions about being a female role model, but I do think it?s just as important to be a great role model for your sons, showing them how it?s good to be working or taking care of yourself. It?s important to feel loved in your life. You set an example of those things for your sons. I think they learn a lot from both their mother and father.?

As for the solidarity of women in Hollywood, Reese stressed: ?It?s important that we all support each other. The better one woman does, the better all women do. The better Sarah Jessica Parker?s movie opens, the better it is for Julia and I and all the girls coming up. It?s important that women make those choices for themselves that are good, strong ones.

?Speaking of making good choices, she revealed to us what she will be portraying in director James Brooks? comedy that?s tentatively titled ?How Do You Know??: ?I?m playing a softball player. Paul Rudd, Owen Wilson and Bill Murray are in it. So I?m training every day. It?s exhausting. It?s a new skill set.?With a busy career and children to take care of, ?tired? and ?exhausting? often come up in Reese?s conversations.

In fact, what peeves Reese has something to do with interrupting her much-deserved night sleep: ?Don?t call me after 10 o?clock at night. That really bothers me. I go to bed really early. I wake up really early, too.

?So what does she do as a special treat to herself? ?Take a nap,? she quickly replied with a chuckle. ?That?s the most indulgent thing for me. It?s the best thing that you can do?just taking 30 minutes for yourself.

?Reese, who turned 33 a couple of days after our talk, said she is wiser in a different way. She said, ?I told somebody the other day, ?I?m old enough now to know that I don?t know anything.? I just feel like I know absolutely nothing. But now I understand that I know nothing. I used to think I knew everything.?

E-mail the columnist at rvnepales_5585@yahoo.com and read his blog, ?The Nepales Report,? on http://blogs.inquirer.net/nepalesreport