Actress Reese Witherspoon has been in the spotlight for years now both for her career and her personal life. That’s more true in 2023 than ever before. She’s currently going through a very public divorce with her second husband, Jim Toth, and she’s also busy with her Apple TV+ series “The Morning Show,” her clothing line, Draper James, and as a mom to three children.
Recently, Witherspoon took a moment from her busy schedule to talk to Harpers Bazaar about her life and career both now and years ago. While her schedule seems exhausting to her “Morning Show” co-star Jennifer Aniston, Witherspoon explained that work energizes her. She said, “I get really excited about work, so I get tons of nervous energy. I’m kind of a high-strung person.”
Being in the spotlight has sometimes had it’s negative side effects. For example, Witherspoon explained that the paparazzi followed her home after her second child, Deacon, was born, and when she called the police, they responded, “Well, aren’t you famous?”
This is Witherspoon’s second divorce. Her first was from Ryan Phillippe. She shared that she felt like the tabloids controlled the narrative that time around, and this time, she’s making sure it’s different. She explained, “When I was divorced before, the tabloid media got to tell people how I was feeling or how I was processing, and it felt very out of control. To be able to talk to people directly about what’s going on in my life and just share it in the way that I share great professional experiences or personal experiences, it feels much more authentic to be able to say things in my own voice and not let somebody else control what’s happening. Then, of course, there’s speculation, but I can’t control that. All I can do is be my most honest, forthright self and be vulnerable.”
Another time Witherspoon admitted that she didn’t feel in control was during the filming of the 1996 movie “Fear” which costarred Mark Wahlberg. During the movie, there is a sex scene that Witherspoon didn’t want to do. She said, “I didn’t have control over it.” She explained, “It wasn’t explicit in the script that that’s what was going to happen, so that was something that I think the director thought of on his own and then asked me on set if I would do it, and I said no. It wasn’t a particularly great experience.”
While Witherspoon didn’t like the experience, she did learn from it. She shared, “It made me understand where my place was in the pecking order of filmmaking. I think it’s another one of those stories that made me want to be an agent for change and someone who maybe can be in a better leadership position to tell stories from a female perspective instead of from the male gaze.”
Witherspoon has definitely made her goal a reality by starting the production company Hello Sunshine. She explained, “Hello Sunshine was created around the idea that media was largely dominated by male voices and male perspectives, so to be able to create opportunities where women are telling their stories in their own words, you’re just getting a better perspective of the human experience.”
