Reese Witherspoon says her agents told her that playing a mother would 'ruin her career'

• Reese Witherspoon recalled agents telling her that accepting roles that are mothers would ruin her career, she told the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday.
• The actress said that even though she became a parent at 23, she was advised against portraying a mom in projects.
• Witherspoon, now 44, said agents told her that appearing on-screen as a mother would make her seem old and limit future opportunities.
• "There was a lot of talk about who we were supposed to be for other people, and, trust me, I listened to it for a long time," she said.
• Witherspoon added, "It was like we're supposed to only create fantasy people."

Reese Witherspoon's agents told her that appearing as an on-screen mother would lead to her professional decline, she said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday.

Having given birth to her eldest child Ava Phillippe when she was 23 years old, the actress, now 44, said she didn't believe the agents who told her playing a mother would "age her" or "ruin her career."

After playing June Carter Cash, a mother of three, in the 2005 film "Walk the Line," Witherspoon saw their precautionary words form into reality. Although the performance scored her an Academy Award for best actress, Witherspoon said she felt "frozen" for years.

"There was a lot of talk about who we were supposed to be for other people, and, trust me, I listened to it for a long time," she said. "It was like we're supposed to only create fantasy people."

Frustrated with the lack of on-screen opportunities, Witherspoon said in a previous interview with "CBS Sunday Morning" that her now-husband Jim Toth told the actress that she read "more than anybody" he knew and suggested turning one of her favorite books into a movie.

She called "Wild" author Cheryl Strayed to ask if she could produce and star in a film adaptation of her book. Strayed accepted, and Witherspoon earned an Academy Award nomination for a role in a project she produced.

She's since produced a number of programs that bring nuance and complexity to a part she'd once felt was forbidden.

Witherspoon starred as Madeline Mackenzie, a controlling mother in the center of the town's gossip, on HBO's "Big Little Lies," and Elena Richardson, a suburban mother who works part-time as a journalist, on Hulu's "Little Fires Everywhere."

In both roles, Witherspoon uses mothers' stories to address topics such as romance, deceit, sacrifice, and race. She's served as a producer on both projects.

Roles like Madeline and Elena are limited, Witherspoon explained to the Los Angeles Times, adding that the lack of women-driven projects inspired her to create Hello Sunshine, a production company focused on bringing women's creative work to life, in 2016.

The company has produced projects like "Gone Girl" (2014) and "Hot Pursuit" (2015). Witherspoon said she largely attributed Hello Sunshine's success to the support she's received from fellow female creatives.

"I wasn't getting calls and I'm still not," she said. "The phone's not ringing. If Nicole [Kidman] and myself aren't doing this work or Kerry Washington, Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie and Laura Dern... we're working hard to create a surplus. We have to give each other ideas and produce for each other, because no one's out there thinking of us first."

Hello Sunshine also shares podcasts and hosts Reese's book club, in which she selects a book focused on a woman protagonist each month. For Witherspoon, spreading these stories is imperative.

"Think about the hundreds of years, if not thousands of years of lost women's stories," she said. "How the hell can I not feel that there's a sense of urgency? Every woman I know that is working to tell stories of women or marginalized groups feels the same way. You don't know how long a window will last. You hope it lasts a long, long time, but you never know."

The key to overcoming road bumps, Witherspoon said, wasn't avoiding risky roles that might "ruin" her career. Rather, it was recognizing her own potential when others brushed her off.

"I will put in the hours, and I bet on myself," she said during a May 2020 interview on "CBS Sunday Morning."

She added, "I'm my own lottery ticket."