Reese is on the cover and inside the February 2010 issue of “InStyle” magazine in the UK! You can read an excerpt from her article below – and get more information about the magazine at instyle.co.uk.

She’s an Oscar-winning actress with one of the hottest careers in Hollywood. But off-duty, Reese Witherspoon is a down-to-earth southern belle who adores her kids, cooking with boyfriend Jake Gyllenhaal and clothes-swapping with friends…

By Nicole Vecchiarelli. Photographs Mark Abrahams. Styling Elizabeth Stewart

In a corner of Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market (an indoor farmers’ market housed in a converted train station), Reese Witherspoon waits patiently in line for a table at the Down Home Diner. It’s a busy Saturday morning and golf buddies are gathering for their weekly brunch at one table, while a mother peels her son off the jukebox at another.

Reese might be one of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood, with a best actress Oscar (for 2005’s Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, with Joaquin Phoenix) and a slew of popular films to her name, but here, amid the perfume of the diner’s famed hickory-smoked bacon and waitresses juggling their plates, she blends in just fine.

Jake Gyllenhaal, her boyfriend of two and a half years, is off exploring the market’s cluttered stalls and will return later to show off the breakfast sausage and fried chicken he’s collected to bring home to her children (their father is her ex-husband, actor Ryan Phillippe) Ava, ten, and Deacon, 6. The foursome have set up camp in Philadelphia while Reese works on a movie (as yet untitled), in which she stars as a professional softball player opposite Paul Rudd and Owen Wilson. She’s got the slightest trace of a shiner under her left eye from a catch gone wrong, but her make-up-free face doesn’t betray any sleepiness from another late night of filming.

Wearing a blue shirt and a casual linen miniskirt, the 33-year-old goes mostly unnoticed in the crowded joint. She slides into a booth, orders an egg-white scramble with a side of biscuits (which are like savoury breakfast scones) and catches up with InStyle about what’s been going on in her world.

You’re about to get a few weeks off after you finish filming your latest project. How would you describe your life when you’re not working?

“I try to exercise every day. I like to run for about an hour and I’m big into working out with girlfriends. It’s an acquired skill, being able to discuss your love life, children and friends – all while you’re running! But we have mastered it.”

What else do you do when you’re just hanging out with your girlfriends?

“There are three of us who wear pretty much the same size, so we’ll get together on a Friday night and I’ll bring clothes I want to trade and they’ll bring theirs. We swap shoes and handbags a lot. I wore my girlfriend’s dress to a wedding recently. It’s fun.”

Does your daughter Ava go through your closet?

“Sometimes. She’s almost as tall as me – it’s getting scary. But when she and Deacon get home from school, it’s more about gymnastics, horse riding, karate, or whatever.”

Do you like to cook?

“I do. And Jake is a great cook – he does it a lot. We spend the weekends outside LA in Ojai [in southern California], where I have a farmhouse. We have chickens and we grow cucumbers and tomatoes. I love it. It reminds me of where I grew up in [Nashville] Tennessee.”

Do you find it’s hard to raise your children so far from where you spent your childhood?

“Sometimes it’s really difficult for me, being far away from home. LA is where my job is and I have to be close, but I never imagined that my children wouldn’t grow up next door to my brother’s children. Or that my mum and dad wouldn’t constantly be around.

“You know, I had dinner every night with my grandparents as a kid, so I think missing out on that is a hard compromise. At least I have a lot of southern friends in LA – I gravitate toward them. I think of those people as a part of my family: they take care of me and I take care of them.”

You’ve been working on your current film for a few months. How do you balance being on set for long hours with being a mother?

“I love my life without work and I love my life with work. My mother, who’s a nurse, called me the other day when I was really stressed out from working a 15-hour day. And she was like, ‘Yeah, but think of it as a part-time job’. And I thought, ‘That’s actually right, it puts it in perspective’. I work incredibly hard for three months, but then I get a break. It’s about really enjoying my time off.

“I have to ask myself questions such as, ‘Where do I relax the most? Where are my children happiest?’ My ideal scenario is to do one movie a year. But as an actor, I don’t think you can do an awful lot of planning.

“In fact, my new philosophy in life is: ‘I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it’. I used to spend a lot of time thinking about the future, as if I could magically predict it if I planned it enough. And then I realised, I can’t.”

Was it your divorce that reinforced that for you [Reese and Ryan divorced in 2007 after seven years of marriage]?

“Yes. You reconsider certain things, but you just have to keep going. You have to keep it together for your kids and for yourself too. I’m trying to learn from the things that have happened in my life, live more in the moment and have more fun.

“Someone told me recently to live in the present, but make plans and take pictures. And I am. I’m writing more, I’m reading more. Going to more concerts. Jake and I went to Coachella [an annual music festival in California] this year.”

Would you say your approach to your relationship with Jake is different from your last one because of what you’ve been through in the past?

“I don’t know. But I do know I’m not trying to be something I’m not. As you get older, you know what you like and what you don’t like, and you’re not apologetic about it. I definitely feel much more confident. I used to judge myself so harshly – I think women in their twenties do. You’re hard on your body, you’re hard on yourself.

“But you start to realise that none of it is really all that important. As long as you’re comfortable, the best parts of yourself come through no matter what. Your mother can tell you that a million times, but you don’t understand it until you live it! I am much more secure and confident now – and I feel so young still. I have a lot of life to live. I want to learn and travel and see art and hear music to get me inspired.”

You’ve talked before about figuring out a role for yourself beyond acting…

“I especially love working and travelling with Avon. Signing on as their global ambassador matched what I was involved in doing personally; every charity I championed, like the Children’s Defense Fund and Save the Children, was for kids.

“But I discovered that, for me, the best way I can help kids is by empowering women. And all of a sudden I had this incredible sponsor behind these ideas I’ve been promoting for so long.”

What’s been a highlight?

“My favourite part has been going to the Avon representative conferences. The top sellers get together regularly and I’ll meet them and we get to ask each other whatever we want. They all have great stories and each one is different.

“I met one woman who was divorced and left to support three children. She couldn’t work two jobs, so she decided to be a representative and she did so well that she became a regional manager and now will be moving up again to be put in charge of a state.

“It’s amazing to see people’s drive to survive. It resonates with me. So I get to hug everybody and see that collective power of people working hard to take care of their families. It’s really moving.”

Part of your appeal is that people feel they can connect with you without knowing you. Why do you think that is?

“I believe we’re all the same – we’re all just people going through life, so maybe that comes through. I feel I’m so lucky to be able to do movies that create characters who are real women. I throw myself 100 per cent into things. It’s just deeply personal for me.

“I care a lot and I want to know that I’m making a difference. I grew up in a community where, every day of my life, my parents and grandparents would wake up and say, ‘What can I do for somebody else?’ In that sense, I do feel like I’m on this journey that has a greater purpose. I’m not totally there yet, but I’m finding my way.”

Reese’s next starring role

Ms W is using her star power to speak out against domestic violence and has lent her support to Avon’s new campaign (in conjunction with charity Refuge) Four Ways to Speak Out (fourwaystospeakout.com). And on International Women’s Day on 8 March, Reese will launch a piece of jewellery for Avon (£3; avonshop.co.uk) to help raise money for domestic violence charities internationally. Now that’s what we call spending with soul.

Reese introduces her new perfume: In Bloom

“I have a lot of favourite smells from growing up in the south [she was born in New Orleans, Louisiana] that I wanted to capture in this scent [left],” says Reese. “As a kid, I was always outside. There was a magnolia tree in the front yard that I think I spent most of first, second and third years of school in.

“And there was the smell of honeysuckle from the creek that ran down by our house. Gardenias were important too, because every Mother’s Day or on my birthday, my father would buy small bouquets or corsages for my mother and me.

“While we were working on the perfume, Avon asked me if I could explore other notes, but I kept going back to white flowers! The packaging reminds me of my grandma’s bureau, where she’d have little perfume bottles out. I love it.”