Reese Witherspoon plans a maternity leave from Hollywood

After shooting five movies in two years, getting engaged to fellow hot-young-actor Ryan Phillippe, and finding out she’s pregnant, Reese Witherspoon says she’s ready to temporarily retreat from the Hollywood frenzy. Witherspoon, 23, who plays an obsessive-compulsive, overachieving high schooler in the upcoming dark comedy ”Election” (opening April 23), tells EW Online that after her upcoming films ”Best Laid Plans” and ”American Psycho” are released later this year, fans will have to wait a year or two to catch her onscreen. ”Unless anybody’s casting big pregnant ladies as 17-year-old girls, I’m definitely taking a break,” Witherspoon jokes. ”It’s been a great year with ‘Cruel Intentions,’ ‘Pleasantville,’ and now ‘Election,’ but it’s going to be an even better time (with the baby).”

When Witherspoon returns from her Hollywood maternity leave, she isn’t concerned about being too mature for the teen-genre roles that launched her career. ”I try not to think of these roles as teen stereotypes,” she says. ”An actress of any age would enjoy playing my characters. I’m just in that stage in my life where I look a certain age, so I play people who are young. Hopefully that will evolve, but I’m not too worried about it right now.”