The Oscar-winning actress is also a major Hollywood influencer whose production house and book club have backed stories that put a female perspective front-and-center
If you’ve been watching “Little Fires Everywhere” to escape the COVID-19 quarantine, or bingeing on “The Morning Show,” you have Reese Witherspoon to thank. And not just because she co-stars in both programs; Witherspoon is also producer and guiding spirit behind these and many other hit productions.
“I do know what makes a good movie; I’ve been standing on movie sets since I was 14 years old,” she said.
But even though she won a Best Actress Oscar playing June Carter Cash in the 2006 film “Walk the Line,” by 2010, Witherspoon was not getting the kind of roles she wanted. That’s when her husband, talent agent Jim Toth, made a suggestion: “‘You read more than anybody I know; why don’t you try to turn some of these into movies?’ And I thought, how am I going to do that?”
“And so, the first book I read before it came out and I thought, Oh, this’d be an amazing movie, was Cheryl Strayed’s memoir, ‘Wild.’ So I called Cheryl and I said, ‘Would you ever be open to me starring in a movie about your life, but also be the producer?'”
“And she said, ‘No, of course not?'” laughed correspondent Rita Braver.
“She said, ‘Yeah, sure, okay.’ I don’t think she really knew at the time that I was a newbie producer,” said Witherspoon.
“I bet she didn’t care!”
“But she just really believed in me. And giving me that opportunity, I’m really grateful.”
“Wild” earned Witherspoon a 2015 Academy Award nomination. She also co-produced a hit film based on the bestseller “Gone Girl.”
So, Braver asked, “Did Hollywood start taking you seriously: ‘Okay, she really is a producer’?”
“No!” Witherspoon laughed.
