Reese Witherspoon Recalls How She “Couldn’t Keep the Lights On” in Early Days of Production Company Despite ‘Big Little Lies,’ ‘Gone Girl’ Success

Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine media company had it’s second annual Shine Away conference on saturday, where there was loads of face time with the star and all her celebrity friends.

Arriving together with 700 guests at the Nya Studios in Los Angeles for the event which includes two days of panels, activations, and programms dedicated to the female purpose and unity, Witherspoon joined a conversation with Laura Dern and Octavia Spencer. The three then spoke about their friendship, and how they have been backing each other, inside and outside the industry, and Dern quipped, “In fact it’s Reese, who I discuss all aspects of my life with, from my love life to my working career.”

Campbell — who, over the last few years has produced an array of works like The Morning Show, Daisy Jones & The Six, etc in collaboration with Witherspoon at Hello Sunshine mentioned how she started her journey in producing at the age of 34 though she was unaware about what it entailed.

Saying that she had been in Hollywood to just work and find jobs for the first two decades, she said, “I was too busy focused on getting jobs to look at the big picture, that is, ‘what is our business?” How are they making money? Oh wait, where are the parts for women? Hold up, where are the people of color that I should see in the crew or producers or director or writers’ list? Like, I don’t see writers who will bring a different perspective in the field. And that is what made me think. When am 34 I had enough foundation under myself inside our businessI also had enough money to help start funding I was like, I’m not going to take money from people who don’t want the change that I want to see.”

Still, Witherspoon admitted, “It was scary because I didn’t know if I was going to get my money back. Over a period I woke up every morning with ‘Oh my god, I’m not gonna get my money back.’ But I would rather take a chance on myself and lose that amount of money trying hard. “Some I woke up every single day and I was like, ‘I am my own lottery ticket.'”

The star also went back to a period following the release of 2017’s Big Little Lies, which was nominated for 16 Emmys and won eight of them after she produced both Gone Girl and Wild in 2014.

“I had an idea right after Big Little Lies — I self-funded the first company and thought, Well Big Little Lies wins all these Emmys and Wild and G erfahren Got all these Oscar nominations, and got $600 million at the box office. With that, 35-year-old Witherspoon, who started his company with four employees, said, “I couldn’t afford to pay my electricity bill.” ‘Well, I remember the accountant calling me, going, ‘You didn’t make enough money producing those three things to keep four employees.’ So, I was like ‘I think I must be doing something wrong’. And that is the moment when I came up with this idea. I was like I don’t need help anymore or help me. Some will say they don’t have a business plan. Hello Sunshine later hired Sarah Harden as CEO to help Witherspoon set up corporate structure and sourcing top executives.

Dern also emphasized how the female-oriented setting of Big Little Lies let the starring actresses discuss things they previously couldn’t; for example, she and Witherspoon and co-star Meryl Streep joined a conversation about money, and Ker, It was the first time I’ve ever had anybody to talk to. And I was going through a vulnerable time in my life, and raising kids on my own and had so many questions and the advice I got from you was, the need for a female financial advisor to speak with. And our first conversation was about taking care of elder parents and getting kids through school and nobody ever told me those things before.”

However, as Dern said her relationships with her fellow actresses, “are the greatest love stories, but they told us that we weren’t going to get along so better just to have one woman in the room.”

“Well, the one thing they said, which I thought summed it up, was that as women, collectively on a set, the reason why there’s only one of us, is that you guys are so competitive. And I found it to be the opposite of that when there are multiple women on the set,” Spencer echoed, naming her long-time IslamophobiAs far as ‘Islamophobia’ the serial is seamless, with Spencer naming her friendships with Melissa McCarthy, Allison Janney, and Viola Davis.

Another good piece of advice Witherspoon shared with the audience is how consumers and viewers can also help fund a variety of projects for female creators, underline that “When there’s a show on Netflix or whatever, just push the ‘like’ button — You don’t know how important that ‘like’ button is. Just ‘like it,’ because that actually influences the salaries of Cherokees women who made it. They run all that data… For instance, even put it in your watch list, that little behavior is important.”

In the post-panel conversation with Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx, regarding the management of their two companies for women; once again Witherspoon again reminisced about the formation of Hello Sunshine saying, “I had a really hard time understanding why once I had one successful movie, then another successful movie, people aren’t getting it; this isn’t a one-hit wonder.” I optioned my first two novels I wrote – Gone Girl and Wild – and within three months both became No. None of my clients lost money on optioning this book. And people were like ‘Yeah, but can you do it again?”

Witherspoon added that when she and Kidman optioned Big Little Lies, one of the financiers called her manager before shooting to ask,’Do you really think this is going to work, Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman in this television show’. Because we are going in quite risky here.” She put it this way “So, it turned out to be this amazing thing which was not just some thing women wanted to watch, but men wanted to watch as well.”

Other celebrities who participated in Saturday’s event include Olivia Munn, Amanda Kloots, comedian Heather McMahan, Diana Flores, soccer players Alex Morgan, Candace Parker, and musical performance by The Castellows; Naomi Watts will perform on Sunday. The second annual Shine Away was sponsored by AT&T.