Reese Witherspoon Recalls Moment She 'Couldn't Keep the Lights on' at Her Production Company and How She Fixed It

Reese Witherspoon recalls one of the most difficult — and enlightening — moments of her career.

During Hello Sunshine Productions’ second Shine Away event in Los Angeles on Saturday, October 5, the founder and actress recalled the “aha moment” that helped her make a wise business decision.

While trading stories with fellow panelists Octavia Spencer and Laura Dern, Witherspoon, 48, discussed how, despite tons of critics, she “couldn’t keep the lights on” at her company.

“There’s a moment in all of our lives when you realize, ‘No, wait, nobody’s coming to help, nobody’s coming to make that decision. For me, I have to make that decision.’ I had a lot of them,” the Legal blonde the star explained. “Being a single mother in my late 20s, I had to make a lot of decisions for my two children, as well as a lot of financial decisions.”

“I remember I had a moment when I was right after Big little lies I self-funded my first company,” she continued, referring to Hello Sunshine, which she founded in 2016 and absorbed her previous production company, Pacific Standard.

Reese Witherspoon in ‘Wild’ scene from 2014.

20th Century Fox/Kobal/Shutterstock

Reese Witherspoon recalls finding her voice as a single mom in her late 20s: I made ‘a lot of decisions for my kids’

Given the success of HBO’s 2017 drama series, as well as Pacific Standard’s projects like Gone Girl and WildWitherspoon thought Hello Sunshine would be on the same level. That was not the case.

Recalling her mindset at the time, she said, “Okay, well, Big little lies won all these Emmys and Wild and Gone Girl we got all those Oscar nominations and we made 600 million at the box office.”

But the reality of the situation, Witherspoon recalled, was that “she had four employees and I couldn’t keep the lights on.”

“I remember the accountant called me and said, ‘You didn’t make enough money producing those three things to keep four employees,'” she said. “I thought, ‘I’m doing something wrong.’ And then I had that aha moment. I thought, I need help. I don’t have a business plan.”

Reese Witherspoon in a scene from ‘Big Little Lies’.

Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/Courtesy of HBO

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That moment, she said, helped her “realize that there were things I didn’t know and that I had to seek help, and then a friend helped me create a business plan.”

“It’s also good to know what you’re not good at, and I know what I’m really good at, but it’s also important to go, something I’m not good at”, Sweet Home Alabama said the star. “Then Sarah Harden—who is our amazing CEO—came in and we had secure funding, but I had no idea how to hire executives and create infrastructure and get lawyers and business and finance people.”

Despite asking Harden “the dumbest questions you can imagine” for a year, Witherspoon said being vulnerable and asking for help is what ultimately led to the company’s success.

“I’m sure she said, ‘Oh my God.’ She would go home and I would say, ‘My business partner is an idiot.’ Like she didn’t know? But she was so patient with me and let me be vulnerable,” Witherspoon said of the Hello Sunshine executive.

“I think that vulnerability has led to our success,” she added.

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Source: HIS Education