November 24, 2025 • 15 mins
Emily Chang meets Reese Witherspoon to discuss the company's founding mission and what's next for Hollywood.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Emily Chang, and this is the circuit. This week
on the Pod, a conversation about power, purpose, and the
business of storytelling with Reese Witherspoon. What does it take
to be the main character in your own story? I
think we all know if you're over a certain age,
you realize no one's coming to save you.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
You are the hero of your story. No one's coming
to save the day.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Witherspoon has built a career playing women who refuse to
be underestimated, from Legally Blonde el Woods to Cheryl Strade
from Into the Wild. But behind the scenes, she was
watching who held the power and who didn't.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
And I dread reading scripts that have no women involved
in their creation because in eviily, I get.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
To that part with the girl turns to the guy
and she goes, what do we do now?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Now? Do you know any woman in any crisis who
has absolutely.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
No idea what to do?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
In twenty sixteen, she founded Hello Sunshine to tell women
stories not as side plots, but as the center of
the narrative. In twenty twenty one, the company sold to
Candle Media for a headline grabbing nine hundred million dollars,
but just a few years later, Hollywood finds itself in upheaval,
with streaming slowdowns, shrinking budgets, and an industry still figuring
(01:15):
out what comes next. I met up with Witherspoon in
Los Angeles at her live summit shine Away, where hundreds
of women gathered to share ideas with a list stars, authors,
and innovators in a celebration of ambition, community, and the
power of women's stories. Here's my conversation with actress, producer,
and founder Reese Witherspoon.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Vibe check. How are you feeling.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
It's kind of overwhelming because it's the It's like the
physical manifestation of a dream that I've had for a
long time.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, but now here we are and all these people
are here.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
What are the big seams that you want the audience
to take home.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
I think a big part of why I'm excited about
today is community. I think we all crave it as
human beings. We don't connect as much, particularly in this
modern world where we're flying a lot, and we're all
very occupied with things that are going on online and
our daily problems, and I think the idea of connecting
over like minded ideas and sharing and connecting is just
(02:16):
something people need to experience, and there's something about it
coming to life today that's been really emotional for me because.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
I imagine this.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
I did a whole exercise when I started this company
where I wrote down what I wanted it to look like,
and a big part of it was having this moment
of people actually seeing each other in one space.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
I mean, you got emotional up there, you know what.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Women came from thirty different states, from other countries to
meet their favorite authors, to be inspired by entrepreneurs and
women in healthcare.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
And it's really emotional to me, and it's not lost
on me.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I'm so I feel really lucky to be a woman
in this position to gather other women and help enhance
their lives, even if it's only just for a day,
or even if you have one little life mob take away.
It's that kind of community that can really change people's lives.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
What does it take to be the main character in
your own story?
Speaker 3 (03:09):
I think we all know if you're over a certain age,
you realize no one's coming to save you.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
You are the hero of your story.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Whether that means you save yourself in a financial situation,
you've saved yourself from a relationship, that didn't work.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
No one's coming to save the day.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Over time, How has your appetite for risk and your
level of ambition changed.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
The thing about risk is when you do it and
you kind of get away with stuff and it works out,
you keep taking more risks, and then you started I
get excited about the challenge of trying something new.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Looking back on your career, you seem to pick the
perfect roles at the perfect time.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
How would you describe your instincts?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Well, first of all, thank you for saying that.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
I think back a lot about the opportunities that came
my way in my early twenties, because a lot of
the movies that I made in my early twenties and
my late twenties are sort of the movies that made
me who I was, imprinted on people's mind to who
I am as an actress. I was always really clear
about what I wanted to express. Even I remember doing
Legally Blonde and thinking, this isn't a story about a
(04:11):
ditsy girl who goes to Harvard. It's actually about a
woman who's very substantive but is unapologetically feminine, and the
two can exist at the same time. You didn't have
to be strident, to look a certain way, to be
considered academic or serious.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I mean also had fun with feminism.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
It did look like you were having fun.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I had so much fun.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
We had fun.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
I know that role changed my life in so many ways. Also,
because it became a musical, so many young girls have
played that part. So it's kind of the only role.
El Woods is the only role that I've had that
I share with so many different people.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
My son's middle school is putting it on in a
couple of weeks, and we've got tickets.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, and it's.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Fun and it's part of conversation still twenty years later.
That's why I'm really excited to be doing the Elwoods.
We're doing a television show with Amazon where we're going
to do the prequel where she's in high school. I
know you've got an open casting call, having open casting,
so I thought it'd be fun to open it up
and let people feel like they might be the next Doll. Ways.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
I hope you're going to teach her the bend and
snap because it needs to be perfect. I mean, of course,
you set out to create a company that would change
the conversation for women. Does it feel like you're going forward.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
I think it feels like we are taking the right
strides forward. But even if you look at the statistics,
it's not fifty to fifty. I mean, there's still a
deficit of female directors, a deficit in screenwriting, but it's
making meaningful change. I mean the numbers, the percentages are jumping,
and I think the consciousness around it has totally changed.
It's like the lights are on. You can't pretend that
you don't know that we aren't hiring women and people
(05:46):
of color for these jobs. So there's definitely more of
an acceptance that stories aren't just need to be told,
but the same twenty filmmakers over and over again.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
How much progress do you feel you've made so far.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
I think there's been a lot of progress since I started.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I really started.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
The first iteration of this company was around twenty eleven.
It was just a wildly different time. There wasn't streaming,
there wasn't social media. The idea of using all these
new technologies and these ability to gather women in a
positive way through storytelling and empowering different filmmakers and different
(06:25):
authors to share these stories that have been sitting in
their mind, it's just incredible and to see what we've
accomplished in just a relatively short amount of time.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
We really got ramped up around twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
And your book club now has a massive influence over
the publishing industry. By some estimates, it's bigger than Oprah's.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
How do you view that power?
Speaker 3 (06:45):
I have a sort of a tricky relationship with the
word power.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
You know, it doesn't feel like power to me.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
To me, it's there's definitely a feeling of maybe influencing
people towards literacy. Our main metric at Hell Sunshine is like,
is it shareable? Because I want to build community around reading.
I don't want you to read it and feel siloed
and you don't want to have a conversation. I love
that idea and that energy of people sharing things and
(07:12):
talking about them and creating conversation. And my original idea
was what I really dreamed about, was taking the book
club out of your living room and into the global
community online. In some ways, this today is like taking
it back down to its essential elements. And having so
many authors here is such a thrill for me because
(07:33):
those are my rock stars.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Authors are my rock stars.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
You've got books, you've got podcasts, movies, TV, obviously live events.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
What era is hello Sunshine in now?
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Well, we're definitely beyond the beginning. One of my favorite
things about being part of a company like this is
it's ever evolving, so it feels like it's always growing.
And then we're also we're you're young enough and new
enough that we can pivot. So that's really important to
me because you have to watch. It's not about telling
(08:07):
people come to us. We have to be able to
go to them. And if that means podcast, great, If
that means television shows are more popular in the movies
at a certain time, we can sort of drive the
ship towards that.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
So I feel lucky that we're nimble.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I asked folks what they wanted to hear most from you,
and you know, starting a business is hard.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
It is hard.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Yeah, what was the hardest lesson you had to learn
and how did you push through it?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I think the hardest lesson for me was even if
you have great creative ideas, it doesn't mean you have
the business plan to back it up. So I've learned
a lot of hard lessons in business. If certain verticals
don't work, you have to really look at them critically.
Even though you think it's a good idea, it doesn't
mean it is and it doesn't mean that you should
stop taking risks. But you need to understand that you
(08:55):
can't continue to risk if things aren't providing economic value.
So it's this constant battle in my mind between the
art of things and the commerce of things. I came
from the middle of America, and I loved big, poppy,
popular films, and I love television shows.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
I watched hours of it after school.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
So I've always gone to that place of how does
this speak to people? How does this make people feel?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And I do think there's always a world where you
can do well and do good at the same time.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Your company sold for almost a billion dollars, How do
you live up to the expectations, the public's expectations, investors expectations.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Yeah, I mean one of the main things that kept
occurring to me when I was in the process of
selling the company was not necessarily how it made me
feel validated, but I thought it was really important that
a company that was about female storytelling mattered. The value
of it mattered, because it's such a reflection in this
world about do we care and invest in women's stories?
(09:57):
And I'm so proud of everything we've created. My team
is impeccable. They work so hard, but they also wake
up working on this mission that they truly believe. And
that's like all I could have ever hoped for is
just to create a company that makes me proud and
makes me think the women who came before me would
be very proud.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
There's a sense that Hollywood still hasn't recovered from the downturn.
Has the content bubble popped and how is that changing
the strategy?
Speaker 3 (10:24):
I think definitely there's a shifts in any market. You know,
we're seeing things are contracting, for sure, but I think
it's going to get back to a business that's really
based on great storytelling, and we continue to look for
the best books to turn into movies and television shows.
We have a dynamic where because of the book Club,
(10:45):
we get access to these incredible authors who give us
these great manuscripts. So we're getting early access and I'm
determined to just keep elevating stories for women. I'm not
here to tell, you know, a million stories. I want
to tell really great stories that really resonate with people.
And my biggest compliment is when people come up to
me on the street and say that story reminded me
(11:06):
of something that's going on in my life, or my
sister's life, or my cousin's life, because that's what I
wasn't seeing when I started the company.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Compare the streaming era of Hollywood to the studio era,
Like what's it like working with Apple and Amazon and
Netflix versus traditional studios.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Well, there's obviously there's different dynamics because we have data.
We have empirical data that like button is pretty powerful,
Like button is powerful, the data transparency is very powerful.
So we're getting that from some of our studio partners
and others not. But I do see things shifting towards
sharing more data so that we can create more targeted
(11:46):
content to the people who really want to see it,
and also rewarding people who are doing great at what
they do. Every business has to have a way to
reward products or materialial that continues to rise. So as
I see this evolution, I see it as I mean,
(12:07):
it's kind of a great opportunity to refine our ideas.
And there was so much going on for that was
just being bought and made and bought and made, and
it was it was about time that we needed to
sort of get to the real premium content.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Again, the world is so different today than when you
were playing el Woods. It's dominated by algorithms and AI
and social media. How do you imagine your career might
be different if you were just starting out now?
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Oh my gosh, Emily, I don't think my career would
be possible.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
It's a different world.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
I see young people, and I have so much compassion
for young performers and actors because they have to be
the producer, the director, They have to shoot their own videos,
they have to market themselves. That's not something that I
understood when I was twenty years old. It was something
there was an entire apparatus to market material. So it's
a different challenge time. That said, the incredibly talented people
(13:04):
will always rise, right, even in a glut of information,
real talent survives and thrives.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
What do you think is next?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
I think we're seeing women getting the economic empowerment and
also now we have this empirical data that women's stories matter,
female artistry matters. The market is responding right because women
consume media. They are on these platforms really liking and
proselytizing on social media about the things they love. They're
(13:37):
marketing these products, and I think it's really nice to
see the acknowledgment by different industries that acknowledging women as
consumers is actually good business.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
You found a way to embrace femininity but also power
and agency. How do you imagine that journey being different
for girls today? Do you have any advice for our daughters.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
I think we have to trust our daughters.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
They are listening. I think we have to lead by
example and do the very best we can to.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Walk the walk. I know.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
I try really hard with my company to show a whole,
dynamic spectrum of the female experience, because if we normalize that,
there are all kinds of different women making different life choices.
Whether you want kids, you don't want kids, you want
to be a career woman, you don't want to be
a career woman, you struggle to make it, wait, you worry,
(14:29):
you question about your origins. Right when we see more stories,
we become more compassionate about each other as humans.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
I have three sons and a daughter, so it's just
crazy seeing how life is different from.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
What's your daughter.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
She's five.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
I think it'll shift, I really do.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
I think it'll shift back to I see young people
too kind of reverting back to this idea of stripping
off all that artifice.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
I think it's kind of punk rock.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
It's punk rock and not authenticity.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
It's punk I talk about it.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I'm like, I think it's kind of punk rock to
not put a bunch of filters on yourself.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
I love it hashtag no filter.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
And that's Reese Witherspoon, actress, producer, and founder of Hello
Sunshine reminding us that empowerment isn't just a storyline, it's
a strategy. You can watch this full episode of the
circuit on Bloomberg Originals and the Bloomberg YouTube channel. You'll
hear from both Reese and members of Hello Sunshine c
suite team, newly appointed CEO Maureen Polo and President of
(15:29):
Film and Television Lauren Newstatter. You can follow me on
ex and Instagram at Emily Chang TV and let us
know what you think by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcasts. Our senior producer is
Lauren Ellis, Our producer is Abigail Harper. Our editor is
Grammarcy Post. I'm Emily Chang, your host and executive producer.
(15:49):
Thanks for listening,
I'm Emily Chang, and this is the circuit. This week
on the Pod, a conversation about power, purpose, and the
business of storytelling with Reese Witherspoon. What does it take
to be the main character in your own story? I
think we all know if you're over a certain age,
you realize no one's coming to save you.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
You are the hero of your story. No one's coming
to save the day.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Witherspoon has built a career playing women who refuse to
be underestimated, from Legally Blonde el Woods to Cheryl Strade
from Into the Wild. But behind the scenes, she was
watching who held the power and who didn't.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
And I dread reading scripts that have no women involved
in their creation because in eviily, I get.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
To that part with the girl turns to the guy
and she goes, what do we do now?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Now? Do you know any woman in any crisis who
has absolutely.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
No idea what to do?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
In twenty sixteen, she founded Hello Sunshine to tell women
stories not as side plots, but as the center of
the narrative. In twenty twenty one, the company sold to
Candle Media for a headline grabbing nine hundred million dollars,
but just a few years later, Hollywood finds itself in upheaval,
with streaming slowdowns, shrinking budgets, and an industry still figuring
(01:15):
out what comes next. I met up with Witherspoon in
Los Angeles at her live summit shine Away, where hundreds
of women gathered to share ideas with a list stars, authors,
and innovators in a celebration of ambition, community, and the
power of women's stories. Here's my conversation with actress, producer,
and founder Reese Witherspoon.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Vibe check. How are you feeling.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
It's kind of overwhelming because it's the It's like the
physical manifestation of a dream that I've had for a
long time.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, but now here we are and all these people
are here.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
What are the big seams that you want the audience
to take home.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
I think a big part of why I'm excited about
today is community. I think we all crave it as
human beings. We don't connect as much, particularly in this
modern world where we're flying a lot, and we're all
very occupied with things that are going on online and
our daily problems, and I think the idea of connecting
over like minded ideas and sharing and connecting is just
(02:16):
something people need to experience, and there's something about it
coming to life today that's been really emotional for me because.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
I imagine this.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
I did a whole exercise when I started this company
where I wrote down what I wanted it to look like,
and a big part of it was having this moment
of people actually seeing each other in one space.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
I mean, you got emotional up there, you know what.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Women came from thirty different states, from other countries to
meet their favorite authors, to be inspired by entrepreneurs and
women in healthcare.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
And it's really emotional to me, and it's not lost
on me.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I'm so I feel really lucky to be a woman
in this position to gather other women and help enhance
their lives, even if it's only just for a day,
or even if you have one little life mob take away.
It's that kind of community that can really change people's lives.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
What does it take to be the main character in
your own story?
Speaker 3 (03:09):
I think we all know if you're over a certain age,
you realize no one's coming to save you.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
You are the hero of your story.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Whether that means you save yourself in a financial situation,
you've saved yourself from a relationship, that didn't work.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
No one's coming to save the day.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Over time, How has your appetite for risk and your
level of ambition changed.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
The thing about risk is when you do it and
you kind of get away with stuff and it works out,
you keep taking more risks, and then you started I
get excited about the challenge of trying something new.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Looking back on your career, you seem to pick the
perfect roles at the perfect time.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
How would you describe your instincts?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Well, first of all, thank you for saying that.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
I think back a lot about the opportunities that came
my way in my early twenties, because a lot of
the movies that I made in my early twenties and
my late twenties are sort of the movies that made
me who I was, imprinted on people's mind to who
I am as an actress. I was always really clear
about what I wanted to express. Even I remember doing
Legally Blonde and thinking, this isn't a story about a
(04:11):
ditsy girl who goes to Harvard. It's actually about a
woman who's very substantive but is unapologetically feminine, and the
two can exist at the same time. You didn't have
to be strident, to look a certain way, to be
considered academic or serious.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I mean also had fun with feminism.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
It did look like you were having fun.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I had so much fun.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
We had fun.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
I know that role changed my life in so many ways. Also,
because it became a musical, so many young girls have
played that part. So it's kind of the only role.
El Woods is the only role that I've had that
I share with so many different people.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
My son's middle school is putting it on in a
couple of weeks, and we've got tickets.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, and it's.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Fun and it's part of conversation still twenty years later.
That's why I'm really excited to be doing the Elwoods.
We're doing a television show with Amazon where we're going
to do the prequel where she's in high school. I
know you've got an open casting call, having open casting,
so I thought it'd be fun to open it up
and let people feel like they might be the next Doll. Ways.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
I hope you're going to teach her the bend and
snap because it needs to be perfect. I mean, of course,
you set out to create a company that would change
the conversation for women. Does it feel like you're going forward.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
I think it feels like we are taking the right
strides forward. But even if you look at the statistics,
it's not fifty to fifty. I mean, there's still a
deficit of female directors, a deficit in screenwriting, but it's
making meaningful change. I mean the numbers, the percentages are jumping,
and I think the consciousness around it has totally changed.
It's like the lights are on. You can't pretend that
you don't know that we aren't hiring women and people
(05:46):
of color for these jobs. So there's definitely more of
an acceptance that stories aren't just need to be told,
but the same twenty filmmakers over and over again.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
How much progress do you feel you've made so far.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
I think there's been a lot of progress since I started.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I really started.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
The first iteration of this company was around twenty eleven.
It was just a wildly different time. There wasn't streaming,
there wasn't social media. The idea of using all these
new technologies and these ability to gather women in a
positive way through storytelling and empowering different filmmakers and different
(06:25):
authors to share these stories that have been sitting in
their mind, it's just incredible and to see what we've
accomplished in just a relatively short amount of time.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
We really got ramped up around twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
And your book club now has a massive influence over
the publishing industry. By some estimates, it's bigger than Oprah's.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
How do you view that power?
Speaker 3 (06:45):
I have a sort of a tricky relationship with the
word power.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
You know, it doesn't feel like power to me.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
To me, it's there's definitely a feeling of maybe influencing
people towards literacy. Our main metric at Hell Sunshine is like,
is it shareable? Because I want to build community around reading.
I don't want you to read it and feel siloed
and you don't want to have a conversation. I love
that idea and that energy of people sharing things and
(07:12):
talking about them and creating conversation. And my original idea
was what I really dreamed about, was taking the book
club out of your living room and into the global
community online. In some ways, this today is like taking
it back down to its essential elements. And having so
many authors here is such a thrill for me because
(07:33):
those are my rock stars.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Authors are my rock stars.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
You've got books, you've got podcasts, movies, TV, obviously live events.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
What era is hello Sunshine in now?
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Well, we're definitely beyond the beginning. One of my favorite
things about being part of a company like this is
it's ever evolving, so it feels like it's always growing.
And then we're also we're you're young enough and new
enough that we can pivot. So that's really important to
me because you have to watch. It's not about telling
(08:07):
people come to us. We have to be able to
go to them. And if that means podcast, great, If
that means television shows are more popular in the movies
at a certain time, we can sort of drive the
ship towards that.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
So I feel lucky that we're nimble.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I asked folks what they wanted to hear most from you,
and you know, starting a business is hard.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
It is hard.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Yeah, what was the hardest lesson you had to learn
and how did you push through it?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I think the hardest lesson for me was even if
you have great creative ideas, it doesn't mean you have
the business plan to back it up. So I've learned
a lot of hard lessons in business. If certain verticals
don't work, you have to really look at them critically.
Even though you think it's a good idea, it doesn't
mean it is and it doesn't mean that you should
stop taking risks. But you need to understand that you
(08:55):
can't continue to risk if things aren't providing economic value.
So it's this constant battle in my mind between the
art of things and the commerce of things. I came
from the middle of America, and I loved big, poppy,
popular films, and I love television shows.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
I watched hours of it after school.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
So I've always gone to that place of how does
this speak to people? How does this make people feel?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And I do think there's always a world where you
can do well and do good at the same time.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Your company sold for almost a billion dollars, How do
you live up to the expectations, the public's expectations, investors expectations.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Yeah, I mean one of the main things that kept
occurring to me when I was in the process of
selling the company was not necessarily how it made me
feel validated, but I thought it was really important that
a company that was about female storytelling mattered. The value
of it mattered, because it's such a reflection in this
world about do we care and invest in women's stories?
(09:57):
And I'm so proud of everything we've created. My team
is impeccable. They work so hard, but they also wake
up working on this mission that they truly believe. And
that's like all I could have ever hoped for is
just to create a company that makes me proud and
makes me think the women who came before me would
be very proud.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
There's a sense that Hollywood still hasn't recovered from the downturn.
Has the content bubble popped and how is that changing
the strategy?
Speaker 3 (10:24):
I think definitely there's a shifts in any market. You know,
we're seeing things are contracting, for sure, but I think
it's going to get back to a business that's really
based on great storytelling, and we continue to look for
the best books to turn into movies and television shows.
We have a dynamic where because of the book Club,
(10:45):
we get access to these incredible authors who give us
these great manuscripts. So we're getting early access and I'm
determined to just keep elevating stories for women. I'm not
here to tell, you know, a million stories. I want
to tell really great stories that really resonate with people.
And my biggest compliment is when people come up to
me on the street and say that story reminded me
(11:06):
of something that's going on in my life, or my
sister's life, or my cousin's life, because that's what I
wasn't seeing when I started the company.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Compare the streaming era of Hollywood to the studio era,
Like what's it like working with Apple and Amazon and
Netflix versus traditional studios.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Well, there's obviously there's different dynamics because we have data.
We have empirical data that like button is pretty powerful,
Like button is powerful, the data transparency is very powerful.
So we're getting that from some of our studio partners
and others not. But I do see things shifting towards
sharing more data so that we can create more targeted
(11:46):
content to the people who really want to see it,
and also rewarding people who are doing great at what
they do. Every business has to have a way to
reward products or materialial that continues to rise. So as
I see this evolution, I see it as I mean,
(12:07):
it's kind of a great opportunity to refine our ideas.
And there was so much going on for that was
just being bought and made and bought and made, and
it was it was about time that we needed to
sort of get to the real premium content.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Again, the world is so different today than when you
were playing el Woods. It's dominated by algorithms and AI
and social media. How do you imagine your career might
be different if you were just starting out now?
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Oh my gosh, Emily, I don't think my career would
be possible.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
It's a different world.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
I see young people, and I have so much compassion
for young performers and actors because they have to be
the producer, the director, They have to shoot their own videos,
they have to market themselves. That's not something that I
understood when I was twenty years old. It was something
there was an entire apparatus to market material. So it's
a different challenge time. That said, the incredibly talented people
(13:04):
will always rise, right, even in a glut of information,
real talent survives and thrives.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
What do you think is next?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
I think we're seeing women getting the economic empowerment and
also now we have this empirical data that women's stories matter,
female artistry matters. The market is responding right because women
consume media. They are on these platforms really liking and
proselytizing on social media about the things they love. They're
(13:37):
marketing these products, and I think it's really nice to
see the acknowledgment by different industries that acknowledging women as
consumers is actually good business.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
You found a way to embrace femininity but also power
and agency. How do you imagine that journey being different
for girls today? Do you have any advice for our daughters.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
I think we have to trust our daughters.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
They are listening. I think we have to lead by
example and do the very best we can to.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Walk the walk. I know.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
I try really hard with my company to show a whole,
dynamic spectrum of the female experience, because if we normalize that,
there are all kinds of different women making different life choices.
Whether you want kids, you don't want kids, you want
to be a career woman, you don't want to be
a career woman, you struggle to make it, wait, you worry,
(14:29):
you question about your origins. Right when we see more stories,
we become more compassionate about each other as humans.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
I have three sons and a daughter, so it's just
crazy seeing how life is different from.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
What's your daughter.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
She's five.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
I think it'll shift, I really do.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
I think it'll shift back to I see young people
too kind of reverting back to this idea of stripping
off all that artifice.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
I think it's kind of punk rock.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
It's punk rock and not authenticity.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
It's punk I talk about it.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I'm like, I think it's kind of punk rock to
not put a bunch of filters on yourself.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
I love it hashtag no filter.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
And that's Reese Witherspoon, actress, producer, and founder of Hello
Sunshine reminding us that empowerment isn't just a storyline, it's
a strategy. You can watch this full episode of the
circuit on Bloomberg Originals and the Bloomberg YouTube channel. You'll
hear from both Reese and members of Hello Sunshine c
suite team, newly appointed CEO Maureen Polo and President of
(15:29):
Film and Television Lauren Newstatter. You can follow me on
ex and Instagram at Emily Chang TV and let us
know what you think by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcasts. Our senior producer is
Lauren Ellis, Our producer is Abigail Harper. Our editor is
Grammarcy Post. I'm Emily Chang, your host and executive producer.
(15:49):
Thanks for listening,
Host
Emily Chang
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