Reese Witherspoon Once Recapped Her Movie's Entire Plot to Passengers When It Stopped Playing on a Flight

"I'm just going to walk you beat by beat," Reese Witherspoon said as she recalled explaining her 2010 movie How Do You Know to passengers on an airplane

Reese Witherspoon's presence on a flight once came in handy when the in-flight movie stopped playing.

During the Your Place or Mine actress's appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers this week, Witherspoon, 46, said she was put in an odd spot on a flight when the airline happened to show her 2010 movie How Do You Know — only for the film to cut off just a few minutes in.

"Back when they used to have one movie that played on an airplane, this is actually a funny story, I was traveling and it was a long flight, it was like a five-hour flight, and I walk in and they're like, 'And the movie today is going to be How Do You Know starring Reese Witherspoon,' " the actress recalled, when asked by host Seth Meyers whether she had ever seen her own movies played on a flight.

Witherspoon explained that both she and her children, who were with her on the plane at the time, found the situation embarrassing.

"And then probably, maybe 10 minutes into the in-flight movie it cut out and the clip broke, the tape broke or something," she told Meyers, 49. "I was like, 'Oh my God, oh my God,' and everyone started looking at me."

Reese Witherspoon and Paul Rudd in How Do You Know (2010). Columbia/Kobal/Shutterstock

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With no other movies available on the flight, Witherspoon said she decided to go to the front of the airplane, asked permission to use the flight attendant's microphone and walked the passengers through the plot of the movie.

"I was like, 'Hi, guys, I don't think the movie's coming back so I'm just going to walk you beat by beat,' " she said as she launched into a brief retelling of How Do You Know.

Reese Witherspoon and Owen Wilson in How Do You Know (2010). Columbia/Kobal/Shutterstock

The movie, which also stars Paul Rudd, Owen Wilson and Jack Nicholson, follows Witherspoon's softball-player character as she decides between a relationship with two men, a pro baseball player (Wilson) or a recently fired corporate executive (Rudd).

"It was actually so fun and funny to get to tell people the entire plot of my movie in like three minutes," Witherspoon told Meyers, as the host joked that passengers must have been surprised to find the star of the in-flight movie on their flight.

Witherspoon's new rom-com with Ashton Kutcher, Your Place or Mine, begins streaming on Netflix Friday.