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Reese Witherspoon may be the new darling of the romantic comedy following sweet-natured turns in Cruel Intentions (1999), Legally Blonde (2001), Sweet ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Alabama (2002) and Just Like Heaven (2005) but she first broke through in far grittier, independent films such as Freeway (1996), Best Laid Plans (1999) and Election (1999). Her latest, Walk The Line, successfully manages to combine a bit of both as country singing legend, June Carter, alongside Joaquin Phoenix's Johnny Cash. Here, she talks about the challenge of singing on-screen for the first time, her relationship with co-star Phoenix and her delight at being nominated for an Oscar.

Congratulations on your Oscar nomination. Where were you when it was announced and what did you do immediately afterwards?

I was in Berlin and because I was jet lagged I had fallen asleep on some couch somewhere. My publicist came in screaming and I thought it was my daughter because I'd been dreaming. But when they woke me up and told me I was very excited. I called my mother and my husband.

How strong was your faith in this project given that it is a very powerful love story?

James Mangold, the writer and director, approached me two years before he even had a script. I thought my eyes were going to pop out of my skull because I'm from Nashville Tennessee, which is sort of the centre of country music in America. So not only did I know everything about Mr Cash and his life, but I knew everything about June Carter Cash and the entire Carter family. I even played Mama Maybelle Carter in a fourth grade play.

How difficult was learning to sing and then copying someone else's style?

I started working on trying to sound like June from the very beginning. It was one of those things where I thought I was going to be fantastic. I listened to her CDs and sang in my car for about a month before I had a voice lesson or did any recording, and I thought "I'm so going to nail this!" Then we had an initial meeting with Joaquin, which was the first time he and I had ever met, and he wasn't sure whether we should start but I was like "Get me in there coach!" But when I heard it played back for the first time I was like "You're kidding me! I'm much better than that. I don't hit all those awkward notes or make mistakes like that." I immediately hit the panic button and called my attorney four times in a row and asked him to get me out of this because I was determined not to suck in the movie. But after many arguments and discussions they finally made me go back and start working with a vocal coach. It took me five months to get to the point where I could actually hear the playback and it didn't sound like nails on a chalkboard.

Has the experience of singing made you want to consider doing more?

After the movie came out I started to get calls from country music record labels asking "Do you want to make a record?" But I have no desire to do that again, partly because the performance element was so challenging for me. I could do it in a tiny little recording studio but then when we had to go out in front of thousands of extras, that was awful and terrifying. You had to walk out on stage and do something to entertain them. That said, I'd love to do a musical, either in film or on stage.

Did the lives of Johnny and June provide any sort of educative quality in your own grasp of celebrity? Did you find any parallels with your life?

I think every experience of making a film is educational and very revealing because of the reasons you choose the film and the reasons that you choose to make certain scenes become more important. Upon reflection, they're always very, very revealing about a time that you're in or something that you're going through. To play June, I had an immediate connection with her background and culture. We grew up with the same religion and shared a lot of the same values of family and spirituality. But I was really so inspired by what a modern woman she was. She was married to two different men, she had children by both of them and she was divorced twice. She was also on the road and one of the only women travelling with Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison. So she was a pretty tough cookie. She had to hold her ground and they had so much respect for her.

And I'm guessing that you didn't find out anything during your research that disappointed you about her?

I actually didn't know that much about her specifically and I don't think a lot of people do. Even people that know Johnny Cash's music really well and know that he was married don't really know that much about June Carter. So finding out about her really helped to inform my performance and to bring her to the front in a way that she has never been before. In the 50s, she was a huge star - she was a great comedian and this travelling woman who sang with every major male star out there. Every single one of them had a giant crush on her and she just would not give them the time of day. Apparently, John and Elvis had a big fight over her. She had a whole thing with Elvis where he was completely infatuated with her and possibly something happened, which was sort of winked at to me by the family. John just became so jealous with rage every time his name came up.

Walk The Line is released in UK cinemas on Friday 3rd February 2006.