Reese Witherspoon Was Given One Incredibly Sexist Piece Of Advice Early In Her Career

Reese Witherspoon was born in New Orleans and then lived for a few years in what was then West Germany, where her father, — a surgeon with the U.S. Air Force — was stationed. Her family then moved to Nashville, where her mother worked as a registered nurse and also taught nursing at Vanderbilt University. Reese took a different path, modeling and appearing in commercials as a child before making her feature film debut in 1991's "The Man in the Moon." She starred in "Pleasantville" seven years later, then hit it big with her performance as Elle Woods in "Legally Blonde" in 2001. The following year, she told Vanity Fair that she had plotted her life as an actor for years. After filming a flower shop commercial for some family friends, "I came home and told my mother I wanted to be an actress," she said.

"My parents were always incredibly supportive," Witherspoon added, with the caveat that "they thought it was a hobby for the first four years." Despite solid guidance from her family and others close to her, she did receive one piece of advice that was and is not only offensive, but counterintuitive for Witherspoon.

In September 2025, she told the New York Times that, when she was younger, "I was always being told by people in the industry: 'Don't play a mom. It'll make you seem old.'" She countered that she already was a mom at age 23, but "that was a big part of when I was in my 20s and 30s: Don't play a mom. No men will desire you, or nobody will want to go see that movie because nobody wants to see a movie about a mom." The idea that women who have children are undesirable is borderline absurd, and it's hard to imagine anyone telling George Clooney or Tom Cruise not to take any parts as fathers. 

Reese Witherspoon wisely ignored that advice, winning the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2005 for playing country music superstar (and mother of three)June Carter Cash in "Walk the Line." That film is even her highest grossing live action film, second only to her role in the animated "Sing." She has since gone on to star in several romantic comedy films, and she's currently on Apple TV's "The Morning Show" alongside Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carell. Witherspoon told the Times that she was able to learn from Aniston's experience in the public eye, and she credits her friend with countering bad advice with solid personal and professional guidance. 

The two stars met when Witherspoon appeared on "Friends" in 1999, and Witherspoon recalled Aniston and Courteney Cox welcoming her and her then 3-month-old daughter, Ava, to the set. "That kindness opened a door for me to ask Jennifer a lot of questions when I went through breakups or a really public divorce," Witherspoon recalled, "and she was just always very generous with advice and care." Witherspoon added producing to her resume with 2003's "Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, and Blonde," and would serve in that capacity for the long-rumored "Legally Blonde 3."

Her success in developing women-led shows like "Big Little Lies" and "The Morning Show" for her production company, Hello Sunshine, has helped elevate her net worth to $400 million (according to Forbes). Witherspoon can credit at least some of that success to ignoring bad and frankly sexist advice decades earlier.