Reese Witherspoon at 50: “I like getting older. Am I going to be an 85 year-old old lady still doing the bend and snap?”

Reese Witherspoon has been inspiring a generation of women ever since she took to the stand as Elle Woods in Legally Blonde.

As the actress turns 50 this week she still represents a positive force for women in midlife. 

“I like getting older,” she said recently. “I think it’s great to be wiser and understand your place in a business. I’ve worked really hard to get to that place.”

Having had a life and career that has seen her navigate divorce, empty nesting, blended families and successful work pivots she has an unparalleled wisdom at 50 that she is happy to share — and we are here for it!

Pivoting career

When it comes to her career, Reese got to a stage most midlife women can appreciate, where they think ‘is this it?’ Having made a name for herself in huge hits like Legally Blonde and Sweet Home Alabama, she had a wildly successful Hollywood career, scooping an Oscar for the Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line, while juggling a young family. She was just 23 when she had her daughter Ava, now 26, with Ryan Phillippe, followed by Deacon, 22, and Tennessee, 13.

But she wanted more. And having felt she was being sidelined for being a woman as she got older, she decided to pivot and become a businesswoman, leaning into her passion for great books and setting up her own production company to turn her favourites into female focused movies and TV shows. It was a brave, bold and scary move – which is what it can feel like for everyone looking to shake things up in midlife. But her advice for making a well judged Second Act career pivot can resonate with anyone.

If you are struggling to make sense of your next career move, Reese’s advice is to stop. “You can’t find your next steps forward when you are racing around and making yourself busy and not giving yourself some space,” she says. “Ask yourself the question who am I, what do I want in the next chapter of my life to look like? It’s huge.

“In my 20s I used to try and emulate people – but now I feel my perspective matters.”

Second Act friendships

Her close friendships with the likes of Jennifer Garner, Jennifer Aniston, Laura Dern and Nicole Kidman have been pivotal to Reese’s success, she says, in front of and behind the big screen.

When she moved to Nashville in the pandemic with her ex-husband Jim Toth and son Tennessee, she said she initially struggled to find her tribe.

“Adult friendship is hard,” she admitted. But she has stuck to the advice her grandmother gave her as a child. “My grandmother shared with me a principle I live my life by. People are either radiators or they’re drains. You need to spend time around the radiators, the people who radiate goodness and light and positivity, not the drains, the people who drag you down.

“Don’t you want to be someone in peoples lives that radiates, goodness and opportunity and optimism and humour and not a drain?”

She subscribes to the theory of friendships as being like a bank account. “It is a deposit and withdrawal system,” she says. “A lot of people might want to withdraw, but you need to make sure someone is putting a deposit in your relationship and do the same for them.”

Empty nesting

When she moved to Nashville, Reese had already felt the pain of her children fleeing the nest. Ava, 26, moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in modelling and acting while her eldest brother Deacon headed to the opposite coast: New York.

“It’s really sad and hard to deal with,” she said. “I grieved about their going to college and cried in their rooms. One of them didn’t come home for Christmas and I sat in their bed and cried.  You take the coat off your back, the food out of your mouth, you don’t sleep because you are worried they will get in a car accident.

“Then one day it is kind of… if you did your job, you did the right things, they go. It’s really hard.” However, being Reese, she did find a silver lining.

“Then they became these incredible friends. We hang out in New York and he (Deacon) will tell me about cool restaurants  – he can get better reservations than I can, it’s awesome when your kids become adults.”

Positive vibes

If there is one thing Reese is known for it is her positive outlook on life. Not dwelling on the negative things that may have happened in your first act but moving forward with positivity and purpose is what she tries to pass on.

“I don’t linger on things, I don’t hold grudges, I don’t dwell in the old,” is her motto. “Everything is a new day to do something meaningful. It’s what serves me and pushes me forward, rather than remember what I was (when younger) or all the wrongs that happened to me.”

Hobby time

To prep for the time when your family have left home and the career has changed a gear, Reese has this one tip – get off your phone and pick up a hobby, no matter what age you are. 

“The one thing I do that gives me pure joy is I paint with my mom on Tuesdays,” she says. “She has a group of women who are aged between 75 and 80 and for three hours nobody looks at their phones and we literally just eat cookies, have coffee and do watercolours. It’s amazing.”

As she prepares to celebrate her 50th birthday with a party and a trip to Europe with her youngest son Tennessee, there is just one thing on Reese’s mind – “Am I going to be an 85 year-old old lady still doing the bend and snap?” We hope so!