Reese Witherspoon covers the November issue of Harper’s Bazaar to promote her role in The Morning Show, the new show from Apple+ with Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carell. Am I alone in finding Reese’s interviews kind of boring for several years now? She’s an interesting person and she’s doing a lot, from producing and acting to her involvement with Time’s Up to running her own side-business, Draper James. But I think the effect of Brand Reese is that she never says anything controversial or even noteworthy anymore. Or maybe it’s the interviewer – Natalie Portman conducted this interview, because I guess Bazaar is allergic to hiring professional profilers/interviewers. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:
On first meeting Jennifer Aniston: “We met on the set of Friends; I played her sister. I was 23 years old and had just had a baby. I was nursing Ava on set, and Jen just kept going, ‘You have a baby?’ I was like, ‘I know, it’s weird.’ And I remember her being like, ‘Where are you going?’ And I was like, ‘I’m pumping!’…She was so sweet to me. I was really nervous, and she was like, ‘Oh, my gosh—don’t worry about it!’ I marveled at her ability to perform in front of a live audience like that with no nerves. They would change all the lines and she was just so effortlessly affable, bubbly, and sunny. We’ve been friends ever since.”
On developing The Morning Show: “When we started, the show was just a book, and nothing had happened with Harvey Weinstein or Les Moonves yet. The Roger Ailes scandal had happened the year before. Then, in October 2017, all those stories started to break about the way women in media were treated. We decided we needed to start from square one and redevelop everything with more of a slant about the truth coming out in media and people being held accountable for their behavior.”
On depicting a nuanced portrayal of how the man feels in a “Me Too” situation in The Morning Show: “As artists, we try to find the shreds of humanity in any crisis and open people’s minds to see all sides of things. What does it mean to be a person who loses their entire life? Their family. Their career. The Me Too movement has been so emotional on all sides. I remember talking to women and holding them while they cried. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to be the spouse or the child of one of these people who was exposed. With the men, we ask, Where is the contrition? How are they supposed to behave? We deal with all of these questions as the season goes on.”
On balancing everything she is involved in: “In terms of work, Hello Sunshine is the majority of my world. It’s about storytelling for women, by women, and about getting more women behind the camera. I do meetings in the morning while I’m getting my hair and makeup done. After that, the people who run my companies take over, and I focus on acting. Acting is still my core competency. It fills my tank. But my biggest priority is to take care of my kids. They’re getting older now—my daughter is in college, my older son is in high school, and my youngest is in first grade—so I have more free time than I used to. I try to get home for dinner at least four nights a week.”
“As artists, we try to find the shreds of humanity in any crisis and open people’s minds to see all sides of things. What does it mean to be a person who loses their entire life? Their family. Their career. The Me Too movement has been so emotional on all sides.” Okay… well, I understand how artists want to create art which looks at the humanity of all sides of conflict. That is the essence of drama. On the other side, in the real world, it feels very “what about all the MEN?” and “both sides had some difficult times.” Yes, let’s waste so much space and time and effort trying to figure out what sexual predators LOST when they were outed as sexual predators. Rebecca Traister at New York Magazine did a recent long-read about the long-term effects of… the real Me Too victims and how their lives were irreparably changed after they stood up to their assailant or harasser. Of course, Reese isn’t saying that predators need to be humanized or whatever… but what she says here makes me tired.
Photos courtesy of Camilla Akrans for Harper’s Bazaar, sent from promotional Bazaar email.
I can understand thinking about the families of the perpetrators – other than Camille Cosby, I can’t think of another spouse who should have known what was up – but I DONT CARE ABOUT THE CRIMINALS. I don’t. I don’t have one more shard of give a shi_ about guys who belittle, harass, grope, rape and ruin lives.
I think this interview actually was pretty interesting. I haven’t seen her new Apple show but I’m interested in seeing the drama of someone losing everything because of their bad behavior as well as what happens in their family as well as the fallouts for the victims. It’s all good for drama.
I thought she was saying the accusers have lost everything.
“What does it mean to be a person who loses their entire life? Their family. Their career.”
I read that not about the man who has lost everything but the victims who lost everything.
But I guess you are right? She means the abuser? if yes…then…barf
She’s married to a top CAA agent, CAA who are very much involved in covering up for these predators, & who are vile monsters themselves. CAA funded a huge part of the Times Up campaign to hide themselves from the weinstein fallout. Talk about inviting the fox into the hen house.
She looks “refreshed” lately. Maybe she used Jen’s surgeon for fillers?
Ugh. Nothing worse than a celebrity interviewing another celebrity. It’s usually a mutual admiration society. (Exception – the Carrie Fisher interviews of Madonna for Rolling Stone in the late 1980s were great because Fisher asked great questions and Madonna was candid.)
The cynic in me wonders if Reese’s take is influenced somewhat by the fact that her husband is an agent and may have repped some of the accused/should-be-accused. Didn’t Rose McGowan accuse CAA of some shady stuff about “Times Up”?
Yes, Rose pointed a finger directly at CAA.
Thanks for the hot tip on the Carrie Fisher/Madonna interviews! I will have to look for that. I was one of the 5 or so people who wasn’t into Madonna back in the ’80s. (I found her squeaky and derivative.) Now, I would love to read that!