In October 2022, Reese Witherspoon was a guest on "TODAY with Hoda & Jenna", where she talked about her new children’s book, her production company and the advice that changed how she deals with criticism.
A kooky little girl
Witherspoon wrote her book during the pandemic, while looking through childhood photos. She remembered all the little businesses she had started as a girl, lemonade and cupcake stands, and how much she learned from them. She describes herself as a "kooky" child who broke into song in class and was obsessed with Dolly Parton. Her kindergarten teacher, Patty Wright, called her mother, a nurse, to say her daughter would not stop singing Dolly Parton songs to the other children: "Your daughter's an actress." Her mother signed her up for acting classes. Being seen like that by a teacher, she says, was beautiful.
Making her own opportunities
She did not always feel she had any power in Hollywood. In high school she worked as a production assistant to learn every side of the business. Later she saw that the parts for women were not good enough, and that her actress friends had the same problem. Since she read a lot, she started optioning books. That led to Hello Sunshine, her company, which has worked with Kerry Washington and Jennifer Aniston, with projects coming with Jennifer Garner and Zoe Saldaña. "You just see a wider range of the female experience when women are the authors of their own stories."
Other people's opinions
Her best advice: the sooner you understand that other people's opinions of you are none of your business, the freer you are. She learned it around the time of Legally Blonde and Sweet Home Alabama, when she realised she could always find more bad things about herself online. It was toxic, so she stopped. Quoting Brené Brown, she says that if you let fear of judgment cripple you, you will never dare greatly. Twenty years after Sweet Home Alabama, would she do a sequel? Maybe. She will "make some calls".