Reese Witherspoon may have been acting in Hollywood since the age of 15, but as she embraces her 40s, the actress revealed that her career has definitely got better with age.
The mother-of-three spoke to Closer about her time working on HBO’s hit drama Big Little Lies and explained how her life experience helped her become a better, more well-rounded actor.
‘One of the things that struck me about Big Little Lies was how I saw my own life reflected in each of the characters,’ the 43-year-old said, ‘because I was a divorced woman, I’d been a single mother, a married mother, and I had another child in a second marriage.’
Having also taken on a producer role in the show, Reese said: ‘When I saw the first version of it in the editing room, I immediately noticed the little lines on my face and said to myself, “I like them, I got them one by one… I worked hard to get these wrinkles.”
‘Now I can play women who have lived more and gone through a lot of changes, not simply because I’m in my 40s but because I’ve gone through that kind of evolution myself.’
Now that’s what we like to hear.
However, age hasn’t just brought on physical changes for the actress, but emotional and mental ones that she also sung the praises of, saying: ‘I think the 40s are the best years for women. You have a much clearer idea of who you are and you know exactly what you want.’
In the third decade of her career, things have never been busier for Reese, who is set to star in Apple TV’s new flagship drama The Morning Show alongside Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carell, as well as working on a third Legally Blonde movie.
However, despite her successful career both in front of and behind the camera – her production company Hello Sunshine is producing TV adaptations of hit novels Little Fires Everywhere and Daisy Jones & The Six – a recent Instagram throwback saw Reese reveal that things haven’t always been easy for her.
‘When I first started as an actor, I went on an audition for a part that I wanted more than ANYTHING. This was an incredible movie with a huge male movie star as the lead,’ she reminisced.
‘I had 3 callbacks, then a screen test and one day my agent called and said, “You didn’t get the part, the lead actor liked working with the other actress more.”
‘Oh boy, did I cry. Ugly tears. For 3 whole days,’ she confessed, before pointing out: ‘But I recovered. And I got a different job. It wasn’t the same and I never watched that movie (!) but I learned so much from that experience.’
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