LOS ANGELES — When she hiked more than 1,000 miles through California and Oregon wilderness, Cheryl Strayed didn't expect to end up in Hollywood.
The author of "Wild," opening this week as a film starring Reese Witherspoon, hadn't planned to write about her three-month solo trip on the Pacific Crest Trail. When she finally did years later (at her husband's urging), she sent the manuscript to Witherspoon's camp, knowing the actress was looking for complex female characters to bring to the screen through her new production company. Still, Strayed was stunned when the Oscar winner called.
"This was before the book was released," Strayed said; before it became an Oprah Book Club pick and a New York Times best seller.
Since then, the 46-year-old writer has been on a Hollywood adventure — one that has inspired profound gratitude and piqued her interest in writing her own screenplay.
Handing her memoir over to Hollywood was scary, she said.
"But I do find that if you take risks, that often the best things come from being brave in that way, from making yourself vulnerable," she said. "So I just trusted that."
She also trusted Witherspoon, with whom she's become friends, and who invited Strayed's involvement in nearly every aspect of the film. The author consulted on costumes, locations, the hiking experience and intimate details about her personal life.
Witherspoon plays Strayed, a young woman who escapes to the wilderness to end a self-destructive bender that began with her mother's premature death. Her marriage crumbles as she turns to drugs and promiscuity to numb the pain. Desperation with a glimmer of dignity drives her into nature — an inexperienced hiker determined to trek one of the toughest trails in the country.
