Hollywood actress Reese Witherspoon has admitted that her Scottish accent is so bad that she had to quit a movie.

The Oscar winner, 40, made the confession yesterday (Thu) on Lorraine Kelly's ITV programme.

Reese was sitting alongside Matthew McConaughey during an interview with Ross King when the discussion turned to difficult accents.

Immediately, the Legally Blonde star said "South African" is tricky before disagreeing with Matthew McConaughey that Russian is hard.

Presenter Ross King, who originally hails from Glasgow, then suggested Scottish.

And Reese Witherspoon responded by saying: "Scottish is really…I was supposed to…I don't want to talk about it."

The actress stops herself from continuing until the interviewer pushed her to explain further.

She said: "I tried to do a Scottish accent once. It was bad. I had to quit the movie. It's not my finest moment. I don't want to talk about it any more."

The trio, who all have Scottish roots, shared a hearty laugh over the confession.

It is not known which film it was that she quit due to her inability to speak with a convincing Scottish accent.

But she was originally going to be the voice of Princess Merida in the Disney-Pixar family favourite Brave which is set in Scottish Highlands.

She was said to be "sounding great" before quitting the project and being replaced by Trainspotting actress Kelly Macdonald.

At the time, co-director of Brave, Mark Andrews, said: "We did have Reese Witherspoon when we started the project and she was on for quite some time.

"She was getting her Scottish accent down, she was working very hard and it was sounding great but as we were continuing with the movie she had other movies lining up, so unfortunately we were unable to continue with her and had to get a replacement."

The actress, who won an Oscar for portraying June Carter in Walk the Line, has a family tree which can be traced back to East Lothian.

She is a descendant of Scottish-born John Witherspoon, a signatory on the United States Declaration of Independence.

The founding father of the United States was born in Gifford, East Lothian in 1723 and emigrated to the United States in 1768.

He was the only clergyman and college principal to sign the declaration.