Reese Witherspoon had to work very hard to sell her production company, Hello Sunshine, for around $900 million earlier this year.
The “Morning Show” actress chats to Gayle King for the latest issue of InStyle, saying of whether it was a number she had to negotiate: “Oh my gosh, yes! It was two, maybe three months of negotiations on the phone all day. Calls at one o’clock in the morning. I didn’t know a lot about private equity. I’d never sold a company in my life.”
The mag points out that Witherspoon and Hello Sunshine’s CEO Sarah Harden will continue to oversee day-to-day operations and remain significant equity holders despite the sale.
Witherspoon adds, “I learned so much. I was really clear about what women’s stories mean in a marketplace. So it had to be a number that signified that it’s big business because women are big business. Female audiences are big business.
“Female filmmakers are big business. You can’t ignore half of the population of the world and say that they don’t economically matter; they do.”
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Witherspoon continues when asked what her reaction to the sale was, “I cried. I cried, and I thought about my grandma, and I cried more. I thought about all of the women who haven’t gotten these opportunities, and I just feel really lucky that I’m standing in a path that other women created for me. [Starts crying] Sorry.”
The star also talks about how important family life is to her, with King commenting on how she and her daughter Ava, 22, whom she shares with ex Ryan Phillippe, look exactly alike.
Witherspoon says after being questioned whether she’d given Ava any advice on navigating fame: “It’s an odd situation because I didn’t grow up famous. So she’s living an experience that I did not have, and so are my sons. We are lucky enough to have friends who grew up in Hollywood and can help give them advice on how to navigate.
“Ava is so down-to-earth. She wants to do great things in the world. She’s studying and learning and trying to find herself. It’s a big thing in life to try different things and figure out what is really your path.”
She shares of what she’s looking forward to in the new year, “More time with people I love. I’m 45. I know who I want to spend time with and who I don’t. And that is one of the great things about getting older — it just clears out so much space. I want to be with my mom, my kids, and the people who fill my tank. And everybody else, I wish them well.”
The interview will be featured in InStyle’s December issue hitting newsstands on Nov. 19.
