Reese Witherspoon recently sat down for an interview with Harper's Bazaar to talk about her upcoming 40th birthday, and how she has changed over the years. The magazine quotes her as follows:
On her plans for her 40th birthday:
"You know, live music, eating, kids...I wanted to hike Machu Picchu. But then I was like, 'Wait, I did enough hiking last year.' I'm done with hiking for a minute."
On how her role in the industry changed as she got older:
"It's almost like my brain is hardwired to collect information and do things. I used to do very little with it, and now I'm being more productive, which feels good...I'm much more open now. In my 20s, I was scared of everything. I didn't know what my career was. I didn't know why people liked my movies. I was wary of interacting with people. I was 25 when Legally Blonde came out, 26 for Sweet Home Alabama, and 29 for Walk the Line. And I was scared, really scared. Now I feel like a different person. It's a great thing getting older. You are who you are; you say what you mean.
There was a point, around 2011, there were like five actresses that I admire very much and they all called me and said, 'There's this role of this girlfriend in this movie,' which was kind of just a terrible movie. And we're all kind of clamoring for this terrible part? We are so much better than this. I certainly can't star in all these movies. I want to get a female perspective on film that would make my daughter [Ava] understand what it means to be a woman in a different way. [Husband Jim Toth] said, 'You should produce movies. You read more books than anybody I know. You should just buy some of them and turn them into films.' "
