Reese appears on the cover of the June issue of Fast Company, a US business magazine. She is named one of their ‘100 Most Creative People in Business’ (#11 to be exact), and the magazine features an extensive new interview and a new photoshoot. See some behind the scenes videos on the magazine’s website, and find scans and photos from the shoot in our Gallery. It’s fantastic to see Reese recognised for her work like this!
How Reese Witherspoon is flipping the script on Hollywood The Hello Sunshine founder is channeling women’s voices into top-tier entertainment–and altering the dynamics of the entire industry along the way.
When Reese Witherspoon was 17, she had already appeared in four films. Still, she took an unlikely part-time job, as an intern in Disney’s post-production department. “I wanted to learn about editing, visual correction, and sound mixing,” she tells me 25 years later. Not long after, she worked as a production assistant on the 1995 Denzel Washington film Devil in a Blue Dress, helping with casting, among other things. Also: “I parked Denzel’s Porsche!”
That inquisitiveness, as well as nearly three decades in front of the camera, has made Witherspoon one of Hollywood’s most astute producers. She turned Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl into a $369 million worldwide hit in 2014 (that earned Rosamund Pike an Oscar nomination) and did it again, that same year, transforming Cheryl Strayed’s best-selling memoir, Wild, into a breakout success ($52 million plus Oscar nods for Witherspoon and costar Laura Dern). Then came HBO’s Big Little Lies, executive produced with costar Nicole Kidman; the cultural bellwether about female relationships and domestic abuse, based on a novel by Liane Moriarty, swept nearly every category for which it was nominated at the 2017 Emmys. After years of hearing from studio executives that there was no market for female-driven films, Witherspoon had succeeded to a degree that proved a hunger was there.
Her instinct for what women want is now being tested on multiple platforms through her 18-month-old storytelling company, Hello Sunshine. She and her team currently have shows in development at Hulu, NBC, and Apple TV (which has partnered on three projects, one rumored to be the biggest deal in history for a straight-to-series show), as well as a film at TriStar/Sony Pictures. But Witherspoon is also laying the foundation for a direct-to-consumer brand, one that is already beginning to speak to women through a website, social media, YouTube and Facebook videos, audiobooks, podcasts, and newsletters—whichever platform she and Hello Sunshine execs think best honors the story being told.
Reese and her A Wrinkle In Time co-stars and director can be seen on the cover of the March 21st issue of UK Stylist magazine – with a fantastic new book-themed interview and photoshoot! Read the interview below, find the photoshoot in our Gallery, and pick up a copy if you can….
Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon on the importance of feminist storytelling
Ava DuVernay, Reese Witherspoon, Oprah Winfrey and Mindy Kaling on rewriting the story books and the power of the written word.
“I recently got hate-tweeted by the President,” begins Oprah Winfrey, looking like the most relaxed woman in the USA. “Since then, I’ve been asked, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ Well, did you see that meme a couple of years ago: ‘Ain’t nobody got time for that’? I don’t have time for that. I’m not going to focus one minute of my energy on that. I’m going to stay in the light.”
“Things I don’t have time for: that,” laughs Reese Witherspoon, sitting opposite her. Mindy Kaling interjects: “If you’ve been to the Promised Land, which is where Oprah lives, and you think about whether she is going to spend time thinking about a tweet or if she’s going to live her life, you would understand why she doesn’t have time for that.”
As storytellers go, Oprah Winfrey is one of the greats (and yes, her home in Montecito, California, is called The Promised Land). But she’s also a long-time supporter of other storytellers, having launched the influential Oprah’s Book Club back in 1996 via her incredibly successful TV show.
In fact, in this room there’s a power quadrant of women who are determined advocates of books – Reese Witherspoon via her monthly Instagram book club and adapting numerous titles for the big and small screen (Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, Are You Sleeping by Kathleen Barber) through her production company Hello Sunshine; Mindy Kaling, author of New York Times bestsellers Why Not Me? and Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?; and Ava DuVernay, the director of A Wrinkle In Time, in which all three star.
The trio play Mrs Which (Winfrey), Mrs Whatsit (Witherspoon) and Mrs Who (Kaling), three celestial beings and superheroes who guide a young woman of dual heritage across space to search for her father. It’s based on the book of the same name, which was finished in early 1960 but initially rejected by many publishers for being, as hypothesized by the author Madeleine L’Engle, a sci-fi novel with a female protagonist and blurring the lines between a children’s and adult’s book. Finally published in 1962, it went on to become a classic. As I write, the film is second in the US box-office charts to Black Panther – proof, should Hollywood need it, that films telling diverse and fantastical stories, that are told by all voices, are both necessary and profitable.
Q&A: Oprah plays life coach to ‘Wrinkle in Time’ co-stars
“A Wrinkle in Time” director Ava DuVernay insists she didn’t consciously assemble three of the entertainment industry’s most successful and entrepreneurial women to play the celestial, all-knowing “Mrs.” characters in Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling.
“I guess I’m attracted to that kind of energy: Like-minded take over the world-ness,” DuVernay said.
Winfrey, Witherspoon and Kaling spoke recently with The Associated Press about the film, DuVernay’s achievement, a changing industry and Winfrey’s life advice.
Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.
———
AP: You’ve all become fast friends it seems.
WITHERSPOON: It’s great to be around people who inspire you and lift you up. My grandma used to say, ‘People are either a radiator or a drain. Surround yourself with people who radiate light and goodness and love and do not stick around the drains because they will pull you down.’
WINFREY: Oh, that’s good, grandma!
AP: What do you think of the historic fact that Ava DuVernay got to direct this?
WITHERSPOON: It’s extraordinary when a company of this size puts their money into it and their entire marketing into this. This is not the level of marketing I’m used to.
KALING: I’m like Carrie Bradshaw where I’m walking down the street and see a bus with my face on it.
WINFREY: That happened to me! I’m driving down the street and I see my face on a bus stop and I’m like, ‘Stoppppp! Stoooopppp! That’s me!’
‘A Wrinkle in Time’: Stars get frank about motherhood, parity and Oprah for president
It turns out, Reese Witherspoon is a killer travel guide.
Last year, when she, Oprah Winfrey and Mindy Kaling moved with the cast of A Wrinkle in Time (in theaters Friday) from California to New Zealand, it was Witherspoon who knew about all the best spots and local adventures.
“Reese has friends in any corner of the world; generous friends who say, ‘We’d like to take you on a helicopter tour,’ ” says Kaling, 38, sitting next to a laughing Winfrey, 64, and Witherspoon, 41.
“Or, ‘Would you like to come to our island?’ ” Winfrey says.
The fast friends represent director Ava DuVernay’s vision of what a modern adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s classic 1962 sci-fi novel looks like in 2018: Take protagonist Meg Murry (in the book, a young white girl from Connecticut), and cast her as a black child from Compton. Replace the three granny-esque “Mrs.” — celestial guides who mentor Meg — with black, white and Asian faces.
“I just wanted to do something that would make a kid go, ‘Wow, I want to fly like that.’ But who’s the person flying? It’s the person who never gets to fly. The black girl,” says DuVernay. “It’s a really big deal to have a scene in the movie, where a black girl says to a Caucasian boy, ‘Do you trust me?’ And he says yes and he follows her. I can’t think of another film where that happens.
“She’s not a Jedi. She’s not a superhero. She’s a girl in a plaid shirt and glasses and she does extraordinary things. That touched me and I related to it.”
Our beautiful Reese graces the cover of the March issue of US Marie Claire magazine! In the interview they talked about the familiar themes of ambition, sexual harrassment, female empowerment, and of course A Wrinkle In Time. Accompanying the interview is a brand new and beautiful photoshoot – I particularly love the softness of the cover, it reminds me of 2003/2005 photoshoots. I love seeing Reese on another big magazine cover, and this one will be available to purchase on US news-stands from February 20th. Find snippets from the interview below, and high quality photos in our Gallery.
The award-winning actress, producer, and activist sits down with Marie Claire’s Editor-in-Chief to discuss her upcoming movie A Wrinkle in Time, diversity in the workplace, and the undeniable evolution of what it means to be a woman today.
I first fell in love with Reese Witherspoon when she strutted down the halls of Harvard Law School in 2001’s Legally Blonde as Elle Woods, proving so forcefully that a woman who cares about makeup and clothes can also be brilliant. I’ve followed Reese’s career ever since, from her Oscar-winning portrayal of June Cash in Walk the Line (2005) to her raw performance in Wild (2014), and I recently spent an entire Saturday binge-watching the Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning Big Little Lies. Reese produced the latter two projects, in addition to 2014’s Gone Girl, under the auspices of her relatively new production company, Hello Sunshine.
Her mom once told her that if you wanted a job done right, you’d have to do it yourself. So, realizing the alarming and persistent dearth of meaty roles for women, Reese set out to create her own opportunities, lifting up other women along the way. With 23 producing projects in the works, it’s kind of a miracle she’s running lifestyle brand Draper James and a killer book club on Instagram. When I heard she’d landed a role in Ava DuVernay’s adaptation of one of my all-time favorite books, A Wrinkle in Time, I volunteered to interview her myself.
Anne Fulenwider: You’ve talked about how you’re proud of your ambition. Where do you get that from?
Reese Witherspoon: I get a lot of support from my husband [Jim Toth, an agent at CAA], who cares deeply about equality and always tells me,“Why wouldn’t you call the person in charge of a company and have a personal relationship with them?” He’s encouraged me to be outspoken. Oprah has encouraged me before I ever met her to be the best version of myself, through her book clubs, the people I saw on her show. [She’s been] an incredible advocate for me as a businesswoman.
Reese, Oprah Winfrey, and Mindy Kaling cover the latest issue of O, The Oprah Magazine as part of the promotion for A Wrinkle In Time. In the interview, the three women talk about empowering women, ambition, the recent sexual harrassment scandal in Hollywood, and the Times Up movement. The interview was televised on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday show on her OWN network and you can see the videos here. Find scans, the photoshoot, and behind the scenes photos in our Gallery – all in high quality:
Oprah Talks with Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling About Sexism
Oprah talks with Mindy Kaling and Reese Witherspoon about sexism onscreen and off, and carving a pathway to parity.
It would be tough to pick two more blue-chip Hollywood names than Reese Witherspoon (star and producer of, most recently, the deliciously sinister, labyrinthine HBO series Big Little Lies and Mindy Kaling (whose six-season comedy, The Mindy Project, was the first TV show created by an Indian American). Both wield witchy magic alongside Oprah in the upcoming A Wrinkle in Time, the new film adaptation of the 1962 futuristic fantasy novel, directed by another boundary smasher, Ava DuVernay. When the “O” of O sat down with these two fearless changemakers, they immediately started discussing how far women have come— and where we must go next.
Oprah: I’m so excited to have a conversation with such beautiful, innovative, powerful women—my A Wrinkle in Time costars.
Reese Witherspoon: Thank you for having us! Sitting around and talking is our favorite thing to do.
Mindy Kaling: And it’s nice not to be in harnesses and wigs.
In the new issue of Seventeen magazine, Reese interviews her young A Wrinkle In Time co-stars Storm Reid and Rowan Blanchard. Below is the cover, and you can find scans in the Gallery. There’s also a video with parts of the interview, which you can watch further down this post.
The Draper James Spring 2018 collection has recently been released, and Reese and daughter Ava have been photographed together to promote the collection! You can see the photos and read their interview together at DraperJames.com – what a treat!! It’s a very pretty photoshoot. Here’s the behind the scenes video:
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The Morning Show (2019)
