Reese Witherspoon
speaker
157 appearances
6 recordings
5 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard 10 May
Reese Witherspoon’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 5 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.
Appearances
And I would do anything because it was my dream to be an actor and a storyteller to that end. I think I endured some stuff that
really wasn't appropriate I know wasn't appropriate um and as a kid I didn't fully understand because the grown-ups in charge told me it was okay now that I'm older and I look back on it um I think god I was part of a system that had no rules and and still a lot of entertainment industry doesn't have a lot of rules there's some really loose stuff going on you know and um
And I think, I think what I did with that and those memories, cause they kind of came up for me around 2017, like really strongly around all the cases that came out. And I don't even want to say these people's names because they don't deserve us to say their names. But you know, who abused women in my industry and I got so charged by it. And I think I, I'd already started Hello Sunshine.
So it's somewhere underneath. I was already like, I have to leave this business a better place than the way I found it. Because I don't want the next young Reese to have to go through what I went through. I want her to feel safe. Just because she wants to be an actress doesn't mean she deserves to be treated poorly, talked down to, sublimated, paid less.
Um, and, and told that she doesn't matter and to shut up, shut up and be quiet was a lot of what we were told during 2017. When times have started, I actually started sitting in circles with women who had done what I frequently were the only woman on set, especially for a lot of us who came up in the nineties. I was the only girl on set a lot of the time and a little girl too.
I'd have a caregiver, you know, rehearsals and things would happen. And I got to sit with other women, had similar experiences. And it was such a healing moment for me to know that like all of them had felt that way. All of them had been treated that way. And collectively we weren't going to do it anymore. We were going to stand up for people and we were going to lock arms with each other.
And we were going to protect women in our industry and other industries. And that was a really meaningful time for me, 2017, when we all went to the Golden Globes and were black. Yeah. Because we know... The majority of the money that's made off of the red carpet photos is off of the women and their dresses and their clothes. It was a sign of solidarity. It was a sign of understanding.
And it was also just the sign that we were all talking to each other.
There's nowhere to hide anymore. And I've had girls call me and say, I need to talk to you about something that happened over here on this side. I need you to call this person, that person. And we do it. And I want to say, I do want to say something. There were incredible male allies. They didn't come forward. They didn't make it about them. They didn't put a badge on themselves.
They just did really, really impactful things behind the scenes. And I will be forever grateful.
Well, also someone's bad behavior doesn't get to steal your dream. When bad system doesn't get to stop you from becoming Abby Wambach, you don't get to stop me. You don't get to make the rules of my life.
And if I have to quietly work inside a system that does not make room for me to be a leader, like there was room for me to be a white blonde lady in a movie, but was there room for me to be a leader? I wouldn't say when I started, no.
Yeah.
And then to step into a little more power, a little more, I have trouble with the word power, but a little more responsibility, a little more leadership, the ability to control my own material, to give thoughtful filmmakers and female writers an opportunity to tell their story in their own words. You can't take that from me. Just because your system doesn't allow it, I'll make it happen.
I mean, I feel lucky that in this lifetime, honestly, I can't believe it happens sometimes I pinch myself. Like it makes me want to cry. Like when we, when we sold hill sunshine, I just sobbed y'all. I just sobbed and sobbed because it wasn't about the money. It wasn't, I didn't, I didn't need that. Right. For me, it was like women matter.
And women's stories matter. And that's my life mission, right? It's not about me needing an award or a thing. I mean, they're all very nice. I really appreciate them. But what my life work is, when my life purpose lined up with my work and suddenly I was doing this work that changed other women's lives and I got calls. that were like, I could afford a house for the first time in my life.
And my, my kids going to college, I have economic stability because you picked my book club book. That's the stuff y'all where I pinch myself. And I think I am so lucky on this earth to be able to take what I was given and then just move it over there. Right.
I mean, luck is one thing.
That's such a good question. I sit sometimes in those board meetings, those tables, and And I watched the way people behave. I think in my 20s, I would have tried to emulate their behavior. But now I bring myself to it. And I think there's a reason I'm there. I was uniquely chosen to be there at this moment in time. And that my perspective as a woman, as a mom, as a consumer of media matters.
The way I watch my teenagers and what they're interested in versus what a boardroom full of people think is important. Women just inherently have this incredible knowledge base, right? But we're not empowered to use it in the right way. We're certainly not chosen to be on boards and to run companies. And if we are, the glare of the spotlight is so harsh and so...
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