Reese Witherspoon rejected scripts she found abysmal and demeaning, including projects built around women competing for a man’s affection with gross jokes and scatological humor. She refused to audition and learned that many actresses were pursuing similar roles because there were few alternatives. She then conducted a listening tour with studio executives, asking how many movies were being developed with female leads, and found that most studios were developing none. She recognized a major white space and created Hello Sunshine with a mission to put female stories at the center of film, television, podcasts, books, and other media.
"“I called my agent, and I said, I'm not auditioning for this, and I'm not interested,” she said. In response, her agent told her every actress in Hollywood was fighting for those two parts because there was nothing else."
"With that, Witherspoon set out on her journey to develop Hello Sunshine, a movie company “made by and for the next generation of women” with the mission of putting female stories at the center of film, television, podcasts, books, and other media."
"Witherspoon set out on what she called a “listening tour,” visiting the heads of all seven major studios with a single question: How many movies are you developing right now with a female lead? The answer, for the most part, was none. One executive even told her the studio had already made one movie “with the woman at the center of it” that year, and couldn't make a second."
"“First I got mad, and then I was like, Wait-this is a huge white space,” she told Satchu."
#women-led-media #film-and-television-production #entrepreneurship #hello-sunshine #hollywood-representation
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