Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston have spent a lot of time together in recent years, thanks to starring on the series, The Morning Show, a hit among those with an Apple TV+ subscription. The two are friends in real life as well, and in recent months the producer has opened up about making content with some of the a-listers she has long-standing relationships with in Hollywood, and how those friendships have only grown as they’ve been able to put together movies and TV projects they can be passionate about.
What Reese Witherspoon Has Learned During Her Two Decades+ In Hollywood
The industry hasn’t always been the best place to enhance female voices. While Reese Witherspoon says starting from the ground up and paying her “dues” did help her to build character, even once she became a famous name in projects like Cruel Intentions and Legally Blonde, she didn’t have a lot of say over the types of roles that were available to her. She wanted to change all that. So she did.
No look I had to pay my dues. I did the work behind the scenes too. During high school I worked as a production assistant because I really wanted to know all sides of the business. And I think it’s important to pay your dues. To that end, I didn’t always feel I had agency or an ability to affect change. But then as I got a little bit older I started looking around at the parts for women. They just weren’t good enough. and I read a lot, so I started optioning books.
That’s where her pals like Jennifer Aniston came in. According to what Reese Witherspoon told Hoda and Jenna, Witherspoon saw a problem and she sought to fix it, creating content for women, by women, ranging from thrillers like Big Little Lies to rom-coms like Your Place or Mine.
When I was seeing there was a problem for me and a lack of opportunities for me, I realized this was across the board for my actress friends too… you just see a wider range of female experience when women are the authors of their stories.
It took a lot of work, but it paid off.
How Jennifer Aniston And Her Other A-list Pals Have Grown In Hollywood With Her
She ultimately reached out to Aniston in regards to The Morning Show and she says this ability to network, to connect, and to commonly align goals has pushed both their working lives forward.
Yeah I mean look we’ve all been around forever. We’ve been through hills and valleys together and it means a lot that I have friendships where I can call – I called Aniston last week and was like, ‘I have to talk to you, it’s really important.’ We share a lot of commonality growing up in the business together.
Witherspoon spoke out about the “mutual respect” and “years of experience” she shares with some of her besties in Hollywood. This includes her Apple TV+ co-star, but also women like Jennifer Garner, whom she’s close enough with to exchange gifts, or Gwyneth Paltrow, whose business and birthdays she’s shouted out over the years. It includes women like actress Laura Dern, whom she recently spent holiday time with, as well.
Her relationships with women in the industry have been lucrative, as they’ve led to the $900 million sale of her company, but they’ve also been seemingly both personally and professionally fulfilling. As Aniston herself put it in an interview with Variety,
We’re partners. We’re friends. We’re girlfriends, and we share all sorts of heartbreaks in life and love and everything.
And after that huge finale ending twist in The Morning Show Season 3, they’ll get to continue doing so as the series heads into Season 4.