Reese Witherspoon shared the financial wisdom that she has gained after past missteps.
During an appearance on the “Aspire with Emma Grede” podcast, the 49-year-old Oscar-winning actress, who sold her production company Hello Sunshine for almost $1 billion in 2021, recalled that she “learned about money from doing things wrong.”
“I do not know a woman who doesn’t have a disaster financial story in her past,” Witherspoon said.
Reese Witherspoon shared her candid money advice after “doing things wrong.”(TheStewartofNY/WireImage)
She continued, “Whether it’s her, her best friend, her sister, her mom, her grandma, her auntie … She lost all her money, or she got divorced and she got stuck with the bill.”
“Debt,” Witherspoon added. “So debt.”
Witherspoon, who made her film debut at age 14, saw her income begin to climb in her early 20s while successfully transitioning from child actress to bankable Hollywood star. At age 23, she married another young actor on the rise when she and her “Cruel Intentions” co-star, Ryan Phillippe, then 24, tied the knot in June 1999.
Witherspoon gave birth to their first child, daughter Ava, three months later. The former couple welcomed son Deacon in 2003 before finalizing their divorce in 2008.
Witherspoon became one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood after starring in “Legally Blonde.”(Getty Images)
In 2001, Witherspoon earned her first multimillion-dollar paycheck when she starred in the hit movie “Legally Blonde.” After the success of her next two films, 2002’s “Sweet Home Alabama” and 2003’s “Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde,” Witherspoon became one of Hollywood’s highest paid actresses.
Looking back, Witherspoon admitted that she was inexperienced with money when she first became wealthy, which led to financial mistakes.
“A lot of what we learn is one course — three days in high school. We’re lucky if you get three months,” Witherspoon said. “And that was the end of my financial learning. And then I became this woman. I was making money, and I was a young mom and I did not save correctly.”
While Reese said she was “fine” financially, she acknowledged that she “didn’t invest properly.”
“I’m completely fine and I did well, but I could have done amazing if I had learned a few things, and a lot of them are mindset,” she said.
The actress admitted that she “did not save correctly.”(Getty Images)
The “Walk the Line” star went on to share the best financial advice that she had ever received.
“Don’t get into debt,” Witherspoon emphasized. “Do everything you can to not get into debt.”
“And pay off those credit cards or don’t spend the money like it’s yours,” she continued. “It’s not yours, girlfriend. And that was a really good piece of advice.”
“Don’t ever let somebody control you with money,” Witherspoon added. “Somebody says, ‘I’ll take care of it, and I’ll take care of you, and I’ll take care of this.’ That person could leave, that person can hurt you. You always keep your job. Your job is your life insurance. My mom used to always say that to me.”
Witherspoon said that her mother, Betty Reese, went through “some tough stuff in a marriage with finances.”(Getty Images)
During her podcast appearance, Witherspoon explained that her grandmother also faced financial struggles and her family’s experiences motivated her to help other women gain financial literacy.
“I have this past of women not being taken care of financially,” Witherspoon said. “Literally, it’s living inside me so, so deeply and that’s why I have a passion for helping women understand and also demystifying it.”
Even M. Night Shyamalan — known for making darker movies like “The Sixth Sense” and “Signs” — goes looking for the light sometimes.
“I just finished three really dark movies, ‘Old,’ ‘Knock at the Cabin’ and ‘Trap,’ which are really edgy movies where the characters are super, super dark and complicated, and I wanted to do something different,” said the director.
He found an interesting opportunity to collaborate on a new supernatural romance novel called “Remain” with Nicholas Sparks. Yes, that Nicholas Sparks — king of romantic dramas like “The Notebook” and “A Walk to Remember.”
Co-authored books are a hot trend right now in the publishing world. Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben have a new novel out. James Patterson has teamed up with Bill Clinton and Dolly Parton on books. This collab, however, is different in that Shyamalan had written the screenplay and Sparks agreed to write a novel based on that story. A “Remain” film — starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Phoebe Dynevor — already wrapped production and will be released next year.
“I don’t think anybody has ever done what we just did, which was take the same story and simultaneously go do our separate things,” said Sparks. “It isn’t in linear fashion. It’s two people doing two different art forms from the same story. I trusted him 100% to make the best film version of that story possible and he trusted me.”
The two crossed paths years ago when Shyamalan was asked if he would want to adapt Sparks’ novel “The Notebook” into a feature film. The job ended up going to Nick Cassavetes, but Shyamalan said Sparks’ work “always represented something magical to me.” It meant something to him that he would be entrusted with a story so beloved.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Sparks and Shyamalan talk about teaming up, scary movies and chicken salad. Answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.
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AP: At first thought, you two working together seems like an unlikely duo. but the supernatural and romance genres have a lot in common.
SPARKS: We’re not the first to dabble in this. The biggest movie of 1990 was “Ghost.” Shakespeare used to put ghosts into his plays.
SHYAMALAN: I think love is a supernatural conceit. It’s a mythology we all buy into, but it is still a mythology, a supernatural mythology that there’s a “one.” The “destined one” that you meet in the coffee shop and that you know it was meant to be, and then all the things that happened because you met.
AP: Night, you say you approached Gyllenhaal at the beginning of the year about this role. When you did that, did you tell him it would also be a novel written by Sparks?
SHYAMALAN: I must have. But it was such an unusual moment because I had finished writing the screenplay, pressed save, rushed to get in the car to go to New York for my daughter’s birthday. In the car the phone rings, and it’s Jake. And I’m like, “What’s up, man?” We hadn’t talked in five years, something more. And he’s like, “I’d love to be in one of your movies.” And I went, “That is so weird. Where are you?” And he’s like, “I’m in New York.” I said, “Well, I’m going to New York. Want to have tea?” I had a gut feeling that the universe was doing something. So, I called my assistant. I said, “Print the script.” So, we’re just having tea and catching up. And he’s telling me how in love he is and how he’s just so happy and in love. And I said, “You know what? Here.” He was in shock. He called me two days later and said, “I’m in. I love it.” It was a weird kind of beautiful thing.
AP: Does the book follow the screenplay to the letter or vice versa?
SPARKS: Like any adaptation, no. The first thing I said when I read his script was, “Hey, this is great. Of course, it’s gonna be nothing like my novel. It’s entirely different.” Night said basically the same thing.
SHYAMALAN: I think for audiences, it’ll be really interesting. They can point out the differences and ask, “Why did Nicholas do that with the character and the backstory? Why did Night do this?” Our dialogue isn’t the same.
AP: Night, we’re in spooky season with Halloween coming up. Are there any films — besides your own — that you recommend watching?
SHYAMALAN: “The Exorcist,” of course, it’s always there. There’s “The Innocents.” “The Haunting” 1963 film by Robert Wise. And the Japanese movie “Cure.”
AP: Nicholas, have you made Night your famous chicken salad with Splenda?
SPARKS: No, I haven’t. I did an interview with the New York Times where I offered the reporter some of my homemade chicken salad and it had Splenda. And whatever reason this blew up on social media. People thought it must be the most disgusting chicken salad ever. So, I said, “No, it’s delicious.” We started making it on my book tour last year, handing it out to people. And in fact, Splenda put the recipe on its boxes. You can get them. I was invited to the Indianapolis 500 to see the Splenda car.
SHYAMALAN: To get to the core of your question. No, he has not made it. Nor has he mentioned it. Didn’t even offer it.
Reese Witherspoon is adding novelist to her résumé with “Gone Before Goodbye,” a thriller co-written with bestselling author Harlan Coben that hits shelves Tuesday.
The collaboration pairs the Oscar-winning actress and book club founder with one of publishing’s most successful thriller writers. It’s Witherspoon’s first novel and Coben’s first time working with a co-author.
Witherspoon said she contacted Coben, despite warnings from friends about his dark subject matter.
“In my mind, he is the greatest thriller writer there is right now,” she said.
Coben, known for his twist endings, said he rarely collaborates but was intrigued when Witherspoon came to his New York apartment with her pitch.
“Immediately, I had a yellow legal pad out,” Coben said. “We started going back and forth with ideas for three hours.”
“Gone Before Goodbye” follows Army combat surgeon Maggie McCabe as she navigates an international conspiracy involving spies and deception while confronting serious personal problems.
“We really wanted this to be the book you take to bed at eleven o’clock and be like, ‘Oh, I’ll read for 10 minutes,’ and the next thing you know, it’s four in the morning,” said Coben.
The protagonist represents Witherspoon’s desire to create a female action hero comparable to James Bond or Jason Bourne.
“Why are there no female leads in any— always the girl in the bikini or the girl stirring her drink,” she said. “But why shouldn’t she be the Jason Bourne?”
Witherspoon drew on her parents’ military medical backgrounds to develop McCabe’s character. Her father served in the Air Force and her mother in the Air National Guard, both as medical professionals.
The authors hope to develop the book into a film or television series and envision multiple installments featuring McCabe.
“That’s my biggest dream, that so many different women will play Maggie McCabe,” Witherspoon said.
Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon and bestselling author Harlan Coben join “CBS Mornings” to discuss their new thriller, “Gone Before Goodbye.” The book marks Witherspoon’s debut as a novelist and Coben’s first collaboration, following an Army surgeon entangled in a web of spies, lies and personal struggles.
The world was stunned Saturday at the news that Diane Keaton—the iconic actor known for Annie Hall, Something’s Gotta Give, the Godfather trilogy, and many other films—had died. Keaton, who was 79, reportedly passed on Saturday, October, 11, after what’s said to have been a recent health crisis. Within hours, Hollywood luminaries began to share remembrances of Keaton, noting her distinctive style, artistic acumen, and kindness.
Many of those tributes were posted to social media. In an Instagram post, Bette Midler, who starred in the 1996 film The First Wives Club alongside Diane Keaton, wrote “She was hilarious, a complete original, and completely without guile, or any of the competitiveness one would have expected from such a star. What you saw was who she was…oh, la, lala!” Kate Hudson, whose mother, Goldie Hawn, was also in that film, shared a clip from the movie, writing “We love you so much Diane.”
Hawn herself wrote “How do we say goodbye? What words can come to mind when your heart is broken? You never liked praise, so humble, but now you can’t tell me to ‘shut up’ honey. There was, and will be, no one like you.”
“We agreed to grow old together, and one day, maybe live together with all our girlfriends,” Hawn continued. “Well, we never got to live together, but we did grow older together. Who knows… maybe in the next life. Shine your fairy dust up there, girlfriend. I’m going to miss the hell out of you.”
Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, and Bette Midler at the premiere of “The First Wives Club.”
Reese Witherspoon paid a tearful tribute to the late Diane Keaton while on stage at the Hello Sunshine Shine Away Festival on Saturday, October 11, 2025. Reese starred alongside Diane in the 1991 movie Wild Flower, and told guests a heartwarming story of how Diane helped Reese to find her footing in the Hollywood industry. After a panel with author Harlan Coban, with whom she has collaborated on a new thriller, Reese said: “I just wanted to talk to you for one second because – and I’m gonna try and get through this without tearing up – but I don’t know if you guys heard that Diane Keaton passed today”.
“I had to take a second to really think about it because when I was 15-years-old, Diane was really important to me,” said an emotional Reese. “She was one of my first mentors in this business when I was 15 and from Nashville, Tennessee, and I didn’t know anybody.” Reese then shared that during one of her earliest auditions, she had a “big country accent” that Diane did not believe was real.
“I said: ‘I’m Reese Witherspoon, I’m from Nashville, Tennessee.’ And she said, ‘Are you making that [accent] up?’ And I said: ‘No, ma’am, I’m from Nashville, Tennessee, and I’d love to be in your movie.’ And she told me: “You’re hired, you’re hired today, tomorrow, and the next day. I don’t know who you are, but I am so excited to have you.’”
“That was one of the most important summers of my childhood because she really took the time to pull me aside and say: ‘Stand up straight. I want you to have good posture. If you’re going to be an actress, you’ve got to work on your posture, okay?’” Reese told guests, adding: “What I loved about her is she was such an original, and if you just close your mind and think of Diane Keaton… I guarantee you, from Annie Hall to The Godfather to Something’s Gotta Give, she is just incredible and indelible and just a truly original person.”
“So for Diane, watch one of her movies and wear a really cool, interesting outfit, take a cool picture, and just live your dream. Be your unique, interesting self, I think Diane would be really happy, so rest in peace Diane,” Reese concluded.
Oscar-winning actress Diane died at the age of 79, her family shared with People magazine. Further details were not available at the time of publication, and her loved ones have asked for privacy, according to a family spokesperson.
Martin Short, Diane, Steve Martin and Kimberly Williams in Father Of The Bride II in 1995
Known for her work in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, romcoms First Wives Club and Father of the Bride, and the mob thriller The Godfather, Diane’s co-stars from across the decades paid tribute following the news of her death.
Her longtime friend Goldie Hawn posted a lengthy celebration of Diane’s life, writing: “Diane, we aren’t ready to lose you. You’ve left us with a trail of fairy dust, filled with particles of light and memories beyond imagination. How do we say goodbye? What words can come to mind when your heart is broken? You never liked praise, so humble, but now you can’t tell me to “shut up” honey. There was, and will be, no one like you.”
Diane and Goldie have been longtime friends for decades
“We agreed to grow old together, and one day, maybe live together with all our girlfriends. Well, we never got to live together, but we did grow older together. Who knows… maybe in the next life,” added Goldie, who appeared in First Wives Club with Diane. “Shine your fairy dust up there, girlfriend. I’m going to miss the hell out of you.”
Fellow First Wives Club co-star Bette Midler wrote on Instagram: “The brilliant, beautiful, extraordinary Diane Keaton has died. I cannot tell you how unbearably sad this makes me. She was hilarious, a complete original, and completely without guile, or any of the competitiveness one would have expected from such a star. What you saw was who she was … oh, la, lala!”
On Instagram, actor Steve Martin posted a screenshot from an Interview magazine article where Martin Short asked: “Who’s sexier, me or Steve Martin?” to which Diane simply replied: “I mean, you’re both idiots.”
Diane and Steve worked together on Father of the Bride
Steve, who starred in Father Of The Bride with Diane, captioned the post: “Don’t know who first posted this, but it sums up our delightful relationship with Diane.”
9-1-1: Nashville star Kimberly Williams-Paisley, who also starred alongside Diane in Father Of The Bride, said in a tribute on Instagram that working with her “will always be one of the highlights of my life,” adding: “Thank you for your kindness, your generosity, your talent, and above all, your laughter.”
Diane was nominated for Oscars for her roles in Something’s Gotta Give, Marvin’s Room and Reds, in which she starred opposite her former love Warren Beatty, and she won the Best Actress Oscar for Annie Hall. She also won two Golden Globes and a BAFTA.
Nicole Kidman wants to cue the spotlight on her beloved Nashville community.
The “Nine Perfect Strangers” actress told guests at the Nashville Film Festival that she’s partnering up with “bestie” Reese Witherspoon to bring a little bit of the entertainment industry out east.
“I’ll be bringing more and more production here,” Kidman said during the panel at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s CMA Theater, according to People magazine. “Reese Witherspoon lives here too, and she’s one of my best besties.”
Kidman, 58, has lived in Nashville since 2008, and admitted she sees a void in opportunities for Tennessee’s capital.
Nicole Kidman plans to partner with her pal Reese Witherspoon to bring more of the entertainment industry to Nashville, Tenn.(John Shearer/Getty Images)
“I can’t say that we will be bringing ‘Big Little Lies’ here,” she said. “That’s all got to go where it is.
“But in terms of just, you know, there is so much room here for production. The crews are fantastic and the actors, and the people, all of… I feel that it’s taking off and will continue to take off, so off we go.”
She added, “Come on, Tennessee, we’ve got this.” Kidman admitted her favorite part about Music City was the people.
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban moved to Nashville in 2008.(Angela Weiss)
“I love the Nashville people because they embraced me two decades ago, and they keep making it possible for our family to have the most beautiful life here,” she told audiences. “Incredibly grateful.”
The “Cold Mountain” actress previously admitted she thought about giving up her career to build a life on the farm.
“When I gave birth to Sunday, I was like, ‘I think I’m pretty much done now,’” Kidman said during the Dec. 15 episode of “CBS Sunday Morning.” “I’d moved to Nashville, we were living on a farm, and that’s when my mom actually said, ‘I wouldn’t give up completely. Keep your finger, sort of like, in it.’”
“And I’m like, ‘No, no. I’m done now. I’m done.’”
Nicole Kidman once contemplated giving up her acting career to pursue life on the farm.(John Shearer)
However, Kidman’s mom was insistent with her advice.
“She’s going, ‘Just listen to me. I think keep moving forward. Not saying you have to do it to the level you’ve been doing it, but I wouldn’t give it up completely.’”
The Oscar Award-winning actress can be found contributing to her community by buying diapers for a school donation drive or visiting a local children’s hospital.
“I like being a part of something not about my work, not about who I am, none of that,” Kidman previously said in an interview with Elle magazine. “Just a citizen who’s in the world. And my kids love that, too, when I do that.”
Kidman is a mom to four kids. She shares her two daughters — Sunday Rose and Faith Margaret — with husband Keith Urban. The actress also shares two kids, Bella and Connor, with her ex-husband, Tom Cruise.
Witherspoon, 49, raised her family in both Hollywood and Nashville. She shares son Deacon and daughter Ava with ex Ryan Phillippe. Witherspoon’s divorce from Jim Toth was finalized last year. The former couple have one son, Tennessee.
Witherspoon shares daughter Ava and son Deacon with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe. She also has a son with ex-Jim Toth named Tennessee.(Gregg DeGuire)
In some ways, September feels more like a reset than January. After the hedonism of Summer, snapping back into routine feels welcome and motivating. And some part of my brain was trained by the rigors of back-to-school season to associate September with new starts.
From moodboarding to buying new planners, I feel so productive in the fall. Many of us get this renewed burst of confidence and inspiration, even as we mourn the end of summer — and our beloved summer Fridays). It will always be back-to-school season, even if the closest you’ve been to a classroom in years is binge-watching Abbott Elementary.
The nostalgia trip we all take — pining for the days when our biggest worry was whether we’d make it to homeroom before the bell — is enough to make me yearn for high school. I don’t miss the classes or the people, but I do miss that time when the only thing I had to pay for was school lunch — and I didn’t even have to use my own money. Things were simpler, even if they weren’t better. But on TV and in movies, you can indulge in reminiscing and go on pretending that everything was better when you were in school.
What better way to indulge in that nostalgia than with a solid back-to-school watchlist?
These school-inspired shows and films aren’t merely entertainment — they’re time machines, transporting us back to that era of questionable fashion choices, awkward first crushes, and the unshakeable belief that high school was going to be the best four years of our lives. (Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. Our high school crushes did NOT look like Zac Efron in High School Musical.)
From the hallowed halls of Gilmore Girls’ private school or Hawkins Middle School’s air of murder in Stranger Things, these stories capture student life in all its glory and angst — no matter how unrelatable the actual scenarios are. They remind us of the friends we made, the lessons we learned (occasionally in class, but mostly outside of it), and the unshakeable certainty that our lives were about to change forever.
Without further ado, here’s our definitive back-to-school watchlist, guaranteed to give you all the feels and maybe — just maybe — make you wish you could do it all over again. But only if you get to look like a 25-year-old playing a teenager, because let’s face it, that’s half the fun of these shows.
1. Gilmore Girls
I used to wish I lived in Stars Hollow — the town where everyone knows your name, your coffee order, and your SAT scores. Gilmore Girls has become synonymous with fall and with the back-to-school season for a reason. We all wish we could channel Rory: her good grades, her pick of hot guys, and her superficial drama. So of course this show is ideal for when you’re feeling nostalgic for a high school experience that you never actually had. At its heart, this show is about the relationship between Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, a mother-daughter duo, so close you’ll give your mom a call. Rory’s journey through the hallowed halls of Chilton Preparatory School and later Yale University makes this show a back-to-school essential. Watching her navigate the cutthroat world of an elite private school — complete with Paris Geller, the human embodiment of a Type A girlboss — is both hilarious and oddly comforting.
2. Matilda
If Matilda doesn’t inspire you to want to telekinetically hurl your principal out a window, you never went to middle school. But more than wishing harm on Miss Trunchbull, This Roald Dahl adaptation makes me wish I had a teacher like Miss Honey. I had a few English teachers that came close (it’s always the English teachers) but corporate ladders of the adult world is devoid of soul that pure. Matilda Wormwood is every bookworm’s hero, a pint-sized genius who finally gets the recognition she deserves. We’re all waiting for our powers to kick in once we read enough books, I’m sure.
3. Jennifer’s Body
This film is Megan Fox at her peak — no wonder it’s recently been referenced by stars like Madison Beer. A Tumblr mainstay, Jennifer’s Body is a cult classic that went unappreciated in its time but it goes triple platinum in my apartment each back-to-school season. It asks the important question: what do you do when the scariest thing about high school isn’t the pop quiz in third period, but your best friend’s sudden appetite for human flesh? This bisexual-coded film is the Black Swan of high school dramas. Megan Fox stars as Jennifer, the quintessential high school hottie who starts killing — and eating — boys. If I was her bestie, I would let her. The gore and the gloriously cheesy one-liners — “You’re killing people!” “No, I’m killing boys.” — make this a brilliant feminist revenge fantasy. No wonder I crave it every year.
4. Bottoms
When it comes to gory, kitschy modern classics, Bottoms is a new entry and it’s number one with a bullet.
Bottoms is a queer high school comedy that reveals what happens when you mix Fight Club with sapphic energy and sprinkle in some Gen Z absurdism. Starring Ayo Edebiri and Rachel Sennott, it follows two unpopular lesbian students who start a fight club to hook up with cheerleaders. It’s gloriously unhinged, unapologetically gay, and so killingly awkward in the best possible way.
Bottoms changed my brain chemistry, just like high school. It aptly captures the desperation of trying to fit in while also flipping off the entire concept of fitting in. Wrapped up in a packaging of violence, dark humor, and surprisingly tender moments, it’s a love letter to every queer kid who felt like an outsider. This film is the chaotic good energy we need in our back-to-school watchlist, reminding us that sometimes the best way to navigate the hellscape of high school is to create your own ridiculous rules.
5. The Breakfast Club
Speaking of creating your own rules and changing high school archetypes, The Breakfast Club is the OG film celebrating high school angst. The Breakfast Club is a John Hughes classic that never goes out of style. Five stereotypes walk into detention, and by the end, they’re dancing on tables and oversharing like they’re on their third glass of rosé. It’s a terrific reminder that high school was actually terrible, and we’re all just damaged goods trying to fit in.
As someone who was a floater in high school, this is pretty much what my average afternoon looked like. But without the cool 80s outfits. The film’s exploration of clique dynamics and the pressure to conform is still painfully relevant — even outside the halls of high school. Whether you identify with the brain, the athlete, the basket case, the princess, or the criminal (let’s be real, you’re probably a mix of all five by now), there’s something here for everyone. Plus, watching Judd Nelson’s John Bender stick it to the man will make you feel better about that passive-aggressive email you sent to HR last week. It’ll have you fist-pumping and cringing in equal measure – just like your actual high school experience.
6. Young Royals
One thing about me, I’m gonna bring up Young Royals. I thought my boarding school was full of angst and drama? It was nothing compared to Wilhelm and Simon’s experience at Hillerska, the Swedish boarding school for the elite in Young Royals. It’s gay Gossip Girl meets gay The Crown with a hefty dose of Swedish angst. Imagine if Prince Harry’s memoir was gay and he wrote it while listening to Robyn on repeat.
Young Royals follows a fictionalized Swedish Prince who is the “spare.” He grapples with royal responsibilities at a new school where he balances dealing with family expectations, class differences, and his growing feelings for a non-royal — and decidedly male — classmate. Tea. It’s a delicious cocktail of privilege, repression, and teen hormones that’ll make you grateful for your mundane high school experiences. But it also reminds you how much can change in September. Who knows, you might fall in love tomorrow. We can dream. The show’s final season aired this summer and it has one of the best finales I’ve ever seen. Go forth. Break your own heart.
7. Heartstopper
For a less angsty and more fluff-filled queer romance, turn on my personal comfort show: Heartstopper. It’s the wholesome gay content we didn’t know we needed in our cynical lives. Based on Alice Oseman’s graphic novels, this British coming-of-age story follows Charlie and Nick as they navigate friendship, love, and self-discovery. Its cast has grown iconic with the show’s immense popularity, making us root for Kit Conner and Joe Locke’s endeavors in real life as much as we root for Nick and Charlie on screen.
It’s so sweet but somehow manages to avoid being saccharine. It’s a refreshingly optimistic take on LGBTQ+ youth experiences that’ll make you want to go back in time and give your teenage self a hug. The show tackles issues like coming out, bullying, and mental health with a deft touch, all while serving up enough adorable moments alongside cringe-worthy universal experiences — like the age old “am I gay” quiz.
8. Sex Education
Less wholesome, but equally as iconic, Sex Education is a British gem about the awkwardness of puberty. It’s set in a high school that seems to exist in a timeless bubble of ’80s aesthetics and modern sensibilities. The show follows Otis — the son of a sex therapist — as he and his friends navigate the treacherous waters of teen sexuality. It’s frank, it’s funny, and it’ll make you wish you had access to this information when you were fumbling through your own sexual awakening. Apt for back-to-school season, it reminds us that no matter how old we get, when it comes to sex and relationships we’re all still awkward teenagers.
9. Election
Election is another cult classic starring a young Reese Witherspoon. This razor-sharp satire takes on the cutthroat world of high school politics and turns it into a mirrored funhouse mirror that reflects our current political landscape. Way more lighthearted than stress-watching the debate, I promise. Reese Witherspoon’s Tracy Flick is the overachiever we all love to hate — or secretly admire, depending on how many color-coded planners you own.
She’s gunning for student body president with the intensity she brought back in Legally Blonde. All while Matthew Broderick’s Mr. McAllister tries to sabotage her campaign in a misguided attempt to teach her a lesson (spoiler alert: it doesn’t go well). Election is a delicious back-to-school watch for when you’re feeling disillusioned with the system but still harboring a secret desire to change it from within. It’s a biting commentary on ambition, ethics, and the dangers of unchecked power — all wrapped up in a deceptively perky package.
10. 10 Things I Hate About You
My favorite movie of all time. I don’t need back-to-school season to make me want to watch this and transform myself into Kat Stratford — but it’s a good enough excuse. This modern retelling of The Taming of the Shrew is a time capsule filled with crop tops, combat boots, and enough feminist rage to flashback to high school when I’m painting signs for the Women’s March.
Kat Stratford — played by Julia Stiles at her eye-rolling best — is the sardonic, Sylvia Plath-reading heroine we all aspired to be but lacked the natural coolness. Meanwhile, Heath Ledger’s Patrick Verona is the bad boy with a heart of gold that launched a thousand sexual awakenings. The film’s take on high school politics feels both delightfully dated and eerily relevant — because let’s face it, adult life is just high school with more expensive wine. 10 Things is the perfect back-to-school watch when you need a reminder that it’s okay to be the “difficult” one, that grand romantic gestures involving marching bands are severely underrated, and that you should never-ever let someone tell you that you’re “incapable of loving anyone.”
11. Love and Basketball
Hear me out: half of Spike Lee’s 2000 film Love and Basketball may take place in adulthood, but it starts with the first day of school. This is the ultimate story about actually ending up with your childhood crush or high school boyfriend. Yes, it’s delusional but something’s gotta motivate me to attend my reunion in a few years. Love and Basketball follows Monica and Quincy from childhood neighbors to high school sweethearts to rival athletes, all set against the backdrop of competitive basketball.
The film perfectly captures the intensity of first love, the pressure of pursuing your dreams, and the realization that sometimes you can have it all — just not all at once. Love and Basketball is the ideal back-to-school watch for when you’re feeling sentimental about the days when your biggest worry was balancing your crush with your extracurriculars. It’s a poignant reminder that life doesn’t always follow a straight path, and sometimes you have to take a few shots before you score. And that women’s sports are just as valid as men’s sports. Play for her heart, Quincy! Play for her heart!
12. Abbott Elementary
Everyone’s favorite sitcom is the defining school-inspired drama of our era. Quinta Brunson’s masterpiece accurately portrays the chaos of elementary school while prompting us to wonder: what were our teachers up to during those years? While I don’t remember much, I’m sure I was just as much a menace as the kids in Abbott Elementary. Teachers deserve a raise, seriously. Full of hearty laughs and genuinely moving moments, this feel-good show makes me consider teaching somewhere. I won’t do it, but maybe…
13. Stranger Things
Hawkins Middle School may be full of monsters and murder, but what I would do to be part of the AV club with those nerds. Netflix’s paranormal smash hit is set in a small midwestern town and, while the last two seasons have been set in the summer, the show is at its best when our characters are balancing a fresh school year with battling the demogorgon. The wait for Season 5 is lasting as long as Senior Year felt. If those kids can get through middle school, you can make it through your next meeting. I believe in you.
Love was definitely in the air for Zoë Kravitz and Channing Tatum at the Los Angeles premiere of their new film Blink Twice on Thursday, August 8 at the DGA theater.
Source: Eric Charbonneau / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv
In case you’ve been hiding under a rock — this is the highly anticipated film that serves as Zoë’s directorial debut (she also co-wrote and produced the project). You can check out the latest trailer below:
The film stars Naomi Ackie as a cocktail waitress named Frida and Channing Tatum as tech billionaire Slater King. When Frida “accidentally” bumps into King while working his fundraising gala, the chemistry is undeniable. By the end of the night, he invites her and her roommate Jess (Alia Shawkat) to join him and his friends on a dream vacation on his private island. It’s paradise.
Source: Eric Charbonneau / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv
Wild nights blend into sun soaked days and everyone’s having a great time. No one wants this trip to end, but as strange things start to happen, Frida begins to question her reality. There is something wrong with this place. She’ll have to uncover the truth if she wants to make it out of this party alive.
Source: Eric Charbonneau / Getty Images / Courtesy EPK.tv
There’s a lot of famous faces in this one — Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Haley Joel Osment and Levon Hawke play King’s friends.
She’d love mock trial. Photo: MGM/Courtesy Everett Collection
Legally Blonde the film came out in 2001, commencing a butterfly effect that resulted in the single greatest, most-colon’d piece of art of our time: the 2008 MTV reality-competition program Legally Blonde: The Musical: The Search for Elle Woods, in which ten under-30-year-olds were subjected to physical and psychological torture in order to play Elle Woods in the musical adaptation of Legally Blonde on Broadway. And, well, it’s time for a remount. Prime Video has announced a Legally Blonde prequel series titled Elle, produced by Reese Witherspoon’s production company, Hello Sunshine. According to a press release, Elle will follow a high-school-age Elle Woods “as we learn about the life experiences that shaped her into the iconic young woman we came to know and love.” That’s incredibly vague, and we’re sad to think of a Legally Blonde property without Paulette, but we are choosing to channel our inner Elle Woods and be optimistic about the series anyway.
“I truly couldn’t be more excited about this series!” Witherspoon said in a statement. “Fans will get to know how Elle Woods navigated her world as a teenager with her distinct personality and ingenuity, in ways that only our beloved Elle could do. What could be better than that?!” Well, Reese, we actually have an answer: What could be better is a reality competition in which 20-year-olds must fight to play Elle Woods. It worked for Madonna … kind of.
The annual Screen Actors Guild Awards celebrate the best acting in film and television, as voted on by SAG-AFTRA members. Along with a shiny trophy, winning a SAG Award also comes with the honor of acknowledgment and recognition of industry peers. This year, Barbie and Oppenheimer each scored four nominations, leading the film pack in terms of the most nods. For television, Succession came in hot with five nominations.
The 30th SAG Awards kick off this evening at the Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall in Los Angeles, California, and for the first time ever, will stream live on Netflix, starting tonight (Saturday, Feb. 24) at 8:00 pm ET. There will not be host for the ceremony, as has been the case for the past four years.
Before the main event, though, there’s the red carpet, which always delivers major memorable style moments. Below, see the best red carpet fashion from the 2024 Sag Awards.
Grab your favourite cardigan, pour yourself a large glass of red wine, and get ready to stare wistfully at the horizon – because Big Little Lies may be returning for a third season. A new instalment of HBO’s Emmy-winning drama series starring Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Zoë Kravitz, and Shailene Woodley is reportedly in the works, with Kidman teasing that she and Witherspoon have been “texting every day” about developing a new chapter of David E. Kelley’s buzzy murder mystery based on Liane Moriarty’s 2014 novel.
“We’re at work on it,” Kidman told Variety. “And there’s a timeline and we’re doing it.” Witherspoon confirmed that she and Kidman were hard at work reuniting the real mothers of Monterey. “We’re working on it,” she told the publication on the Golden Globes red carpet. “Nic and I are working on it a lot.”
How did Big Little Lies go from DOA to a potential third season? Let us explain.
Wait, wasn’tBig Little Liessupposed to be a limited series?
Initially, it was. Like its HBO sister The White Lotus, Big Little Lies was originally developed and billed as a limited series when it premiered on the network on February 19, 2017. But that’s because the network apparently didn’t realise what a hit it would have on its hands. Big Little Lies was huge both critically and commercially, winning five Emmys, including outstanding supporting actor in a limited series (Alexander Skarsgård), outstanding director of a limited series (Jean-Marc Vallée), outstanding supporting actress in a limited series (Dern), outstanding lead actress in limited series (Kidman), and outstanding limited series.
The following December, it was announced that Big Little Lies would be returning for a second season.
How was the second season?
Well… not great. Things got off to a strong start when HBO announced that the incredibly vibe-appropriate Meryl Streep would be joining the cast in season two as the mother-in-law of Kidman’s Celeste. But production was notoriously bumpy. Director Andrea Arnold was initially hired to direct the seven-episode second season but eventually left the production “heartbroken” due to creative differences between herself and Vallée. Vallée took the reins back, directing the rest of the episodes and re-editing episodes Arnold had already shot, so that they would better fit his style and aesthetic.
Despite the drama, Big Little Lies’ second season premiered on June 9, 2019. While still buzzy and popular with viewers, the second season was less critically acclaimed than the first. Season two was only nominated for two Emmys — Streep and Dern scored nods for outstanding supporting actress in a drama series — and lost both. While the fate of the series was in the air, it weathered an unexpected tragedy when Vallée died in 2021 at his chalet in Québec City at the age of 58. The following year, Kravitz said that Big Little Lies was effectively “done” after the loss of their director. “I can’t imagine going on without him,” she said.
So, how did season three ofBig little Liesget off the ground?
According to Kidman, her daughter actually had something to do with it. In an interview for Vogue Australia, Kidman said she recently watched the series with her 15-year-old daughter, Sunday, who immediately became obsessed with the show.
“Jumping the shark” is bound to happen on any TV series if it goes on long enough. And maybe, after a mere three seasons, The Morning Show has exhibited itself to have done just that. Even if it took Jennifer Aniston’s “other” major show, Friends, slightly longer. Arguably not until season eight, when the writers decided to drag out Ross (David Schwimmer) and Rachel’s (Aniston) “will they or won’t they get together?” plotline by throwing Joey (Matt LeBlanc) as yet another wrench into the mix to delay the inevitable. The worst, most ill-conceived one yet. In season three of The Morning Show, Paul Marks a.k.a. Don Draper (Jon Hamm) is that wrench delaying the inevitable. In this instance, that UBA is doomed to shutter after its endless sputter.
Although, initially, it felt as though the addition of Hamm (whose last name couldn’t be more ideal for an actor) as an Elon Musk-esque billionaire (minus the autism) would be a welcome “shake-up” to The Morning Show, things took a quick nosedive after the episode wherein a chasm in the TV space-time continuum occurred by way of Rachel Green fucking Don Draper. With four episodes left to go after that happened in “The Stanford Student,” it didn’t take long for the season to devolve quite quickly, with Alex Levy (Aniston) turning into the tone deaf, blinded-by-peen, villainous white woman to complement Paul Marks as a villainous white man. In fact, the suspension of disbelief viewers must invoke in order to believe that someone as “smart” and “shrewd” as Alex would go for Paul just because of the supposed “Hepburn-Tracy” dynamic they have at first is all but impossible to maintain for much longer after the seventh episode, “Strict Scrutiny.” The latter immediately commences with some cringeworthy moments between the two, complete with Paul making her a frittata for breakfast (as if even the most romantic of billionaires would ever) and Alex already looking upon this gesture as a reason to fall in total love with the man who has a nefarious reputation. One that leads the latest TMS co-anchor, Chris Jackson (Nicole Beharie), to casually mention to Alex while they’re both in the makeup chair, “There are studies that show power…it actually changes the brain. It erases the ability to empathize. It makes me wonder: what does Paul Marks really care about?”
Why, amassing more power of course. And how does one do that by any other method but quashing all opposition to his money-making potential? For money is power in this thing called “life,” alternately known as capitalism (hadn’t you heard? Capitalism is life). Alex, too moneyed for too long to remember that there are actually people—nay, men—like Paul who still care about racking up a higher and higher “worth,” has always been more concerned with prestige and respect rather than the money that comes with it. What’s more, Alex, in contrast to Paul, only seems to care about racking up her previously low orgasm count (at least as given by another human being). Hence, being irritated rather than taking it to heart when her former morning co-anchor, Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon), tells her that Paul is not only bad news just because, duh, he’s a billionaire, but because she’s been doing some digging and everything she turns up points to something very shady going on at his company, Hyperion. The one that’s supposed to launch a SpaceX-inspired rocket. And does a test version of that in episode one, “The Kármán Line,” on live TV. Except that Paul’s big morning show moment is dampened by the transmission being cut, followed by a massive cyberattack on all of UBA’s servers. These major plot points ultimately being intertwined, as the big season three reveal in the final episode, “The Overview Effect,” is that Paul was the mastermind behind the hack all along, not to mention a master in the art of surveillance that rivals J. Edgar Hoover-level scope. All of which is to say that, yes, Jennifer Aniston was starring in her own version of Sleeping With the Enemy. Indeed, the ick factor noticeably increases when one stops to think about how the “attraction” between her and Paul was likely entirely manufactured on Paul’s side of things. The greatest sign of that being that billionaires rarely, if ever, date age-appropriate women.
After their “union” is exposed by The Vault, the same online rag that outed Bradley, the better part of the season is then spent showing Alex being branded as a hypocrite with an apparent flavor for shitty men (see also: Mitch Kessler [Steve Carrell]). As Alex deals with all of the fallout for the unwanted public consumption of their relationship, UBA continues to focus its news coverage on the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. And, considering the double standard Alex faces for being in a relationship with Paul, it’s a timely parallel to the form of gross sexism she’s experiencing. Even from her “own kind.” Namely, the interview subject Chip (Mark Duplass) talks her into for Alex Unfiltered, Jess Bennett (Shannon Woodward), a co-founder of an online magazine called The Break.
Rather than focusing on women’s rights, as was the plan for their interview, Jess keeps bringing up Alex’s strange bedfellow, finally asking, “If a reporter hooks up with a billionaire who is buying her media company, people are going to ask questions. Like, ‘Is she actually capable of speaking truth to power?’” Alex, in the end, tries to prove that she still can…by giving up her precious dick in favor of doing “the right thing.” Or, more accurately, yet another desperate thing: merging with fellow “legacy media” network NBN. But hey, that’s still better than selling it to a man who plans to dismantle the whole outfit for “parts” (in a move that echoes Lukas Matsson’s [Alexander Skarsgård] on Succession) so he can make a quick few billion to pump back into his fledgling wannabe SpaceX company.
Despite knowing all this—that Paul was responsible for the hack, spied on and egregiously violated Bradley’s privacy, silenced multiple Hyperion employees, was willing to endanger people’s lives to promote his own bottom line, etc., etc.—she still manages to shed a few tears in the final scene they share together. And, after he walks away, watching Alex for almost fifteen seconds as the camera offers a close-up of her paltry tears and scrunched-up (or as scrunched-up as the fillers will allow) face, the absurdity of it all is accented when the camera shifts to a wide shot of her standing on her massive balcony with its unheard of skyline view. In other words, poor little rich girl—she lost her poor little rich boy.
In the scene that follows, she appears to have mended quickly, escorting Bradley to the FBI building so she can confess to her obstruction of justice (another “okay, what the fuck?” plotline being her brother’s involvement with January 6th) while saying that she’s not so sure about how to continue in the new UBA (/UBANBN) era without Bradley. But Bradley is there to comfort her by insisting she really will have a voice in the new company this time. Alex ominously returns, “Be careful what you fight for.” This apparently setting things up for season four, aimed at exploring what it “really means” for a woman to have power. If Margaret Thatcher was an indication, it means they end up being no better than men (harkening back to what Chris said about power altering people’s brain chemistry).
Whatever the “message” of season four might be, season three’s was, despite being occasionally all over the place, mostly on-brand with the current ongoing hate campaign against the rich. Yet that doesn’t necessarily make for the most “stellar” of television just because the themes presented are “correct.” And, although the name of The Morning Show’s game from the beginning has been to “incorporate timely things” into its narrative framework, doing so in season three has caused a more jumping the shark effect than a “pause for reflection” one. Something that doesn’t necessarily bode well for the future of the series…however many subsequent seasons there might be.
Reese Witherspoon and her Hello Sunshine media company hosted its inaugural Shine Away event on Saturday, featuring a number of conversations with Witherspoon’s A-list friends and collaborators.
The event, held in downtown Los Angeles, welcomed hundreds of ticketed guests to hear from participants including Jennifer Garner, Mindy Kaling, Tracee Ellis Ross, Allyson Felix, The Home Edit’s Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin, Eve Rodsky, Hannah Bronfman, Cheryl Strayed and an afternoon performance by Dove Cameron.
Fortune Feimster kicked off the day with a short standup set, followed by Witherspoon taking the stage to discuss her journey to launching Hello Sunshine in 2016. She recalled how few women-centered stories she was seeing at the time, despite women consuming two to three times more media than men.
“After I did a whole lot of soul searching and a lot of complaining to anyone who would listen, namely my mother, I realized what so many people in this room have realized, is that if you want to fix a problem, you have to be part of the solution. I would like to also point out women are always part of the solution,” she said, noting, “We’ve had enough of people telling our stories for us. One of the biggest rules in my family is you get to tell your own news, and a version of that in Hello Sunshine terms is women get to tell their own stories.”
The star also commented on holding the event amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, saying, “I am a mom first before anything, and watching the Jewish lives that have been lost, the Palestinian lives that have been lost, it’s just devastating. And I don’t profess to be any sort of expert on war or conflict in the Middle East so I’m not going to speak about that, but I do want you to know that for my team and myself, our hearts are broken and we just want to close our eyes and just send love and light to everyone who is suffering right now in the world.”
To start off the day of programming, Witherspoon joined Garner and Kaling for a panel conversation moderated by AT&T chief marketing officer Kellyn Smith Kenny. The group was not able to specifically talk about their past projects due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, but spoke about their entrepreneurial and philanthropic work outside of acting, as well as their friendship.
Witherspoon recalled reaching out to Kaling about working together after reading her book Why Not Me?, and getting close to Garner after connecting over a children’s charity.
“These two women are two of the first people that I called when I did Hello Sunshine. I was like, ‘Will you work with me, how can we work together?’ I pitched Mindy 17 podcasts that we still never did. I was like, ‘What about this one where we just a watch a rom-com and drink wine? Is that a podcast or is that like a Friday night?’” Witherspoon joked. “And of course I called Jen every time I’d read a great book like, ‘Do you want to star in this? OK, but Jen,’ I’m like, ‘I want to be protecting your time with your kids because I know you’re going through a lot right now and this is a lot so is this a good one or not?’ It was just about the excitement of being able to work with my very dearest friends, too.”
For her part, Garner remembered “going through a very public, very hard moment in my life; [Witherspoon] was right there, and the way I needed to get through it was dance cardio and I dance cardio’d so hard we broke her foot but she kept going.” Kaling recalled working with Witherspoon on a movie where she floated the idea of having children by herself as a single woman, and Witherspoon told her to do it.
“That’s a scary thing to embark on and sometimes you need that person. I think we see Reese as an entertainer, she’s obviously so funny and so talented, but as a friend, the person who can tell you tough things and you believe her because you’ve been through so much and you’re incredibly open about it,” Kaling said. Garner also spoke about Hollywood actresses uniting for meetings at Witherspoon’s house during the Time’s Up movement: “It was the first time I’d ever sat down with that many actresses in the same room that we weren’t like passing each other at an awards show in big dresses, where we just sat. We’d been siloed off; the one place that doesn’t happen, the place that started the change where that no longer can happen, is Hello Sunshine.”
Witherspoon also discussed her approach to choosing her projects, saying she came to a realization that, “I’m not meant to be doing dark, heavy, intense, horror, gore, darkness movies. People like to see me do light movies, and I was like, OK. It doesn’t put you in the cool kids club a lot but I don’t care, I don’t want to be in the cool kids club. I want to make optimistic stuff that makes girls excited to be women in this world, because it is a wonderful thing to be a woman in this world.” Kaling teased that “B.J. Novak says it’s not a Mindy Kaling show unless there’s a man running shirtless in slow motion. And you know what, I’ve been so used to the male gaze my entire life that yes, I will look at a handsome torso. And I want to provide that for you.”
Later in the program, Witherspoon sat down for a fireside chat with Ross, after the two also became close during the Time’s Up movement. Ross spoke about her decade-long journey to launch her hair product company, Pattern Beauty, and how she finds balance in her life outside of business and her acting career.
“When you are single and don’t have kids, you really have to be conscious about curating what you want around you when you want to be happy, or you’ll just stay in your house or you’ll just spend your whole time working — neither works,” Ross said. “I don’t look for balance because I think it’s impossible, but I look for harmony. So it’s a sense of how the waves move: sometimes they’re big, sometimes they’re small. Sometimes there’s more work, sometimes there’s less.”
Witherspoon admitted she’s been trying hard to find balance outside of work, explaining, “I’m a person who fills my schedule with busyness so that I feel less alone or less nervous or less unsettled, like work has always been my bomb. And I started to realize that isn’t going to work for me; about a year ago I was like, ‘I was a robot and the robot broke.’”
The star said she texted Ross at this time and realized that amid all her work and family duties, “it’s really important to remember that you have to be the glue that holds yourself together,” adding that at the time, “I didn’t feel like I was taking very good care of myself and I wasn’t asking other people for help.”
The Shine Away event was put on in partnership with AT&T and also welcomed Lindsey Vonn, Kerri Walsh Jennings, and authors Curtis Sittenfeld, Jasmine Guillory and Laura Dave.
Just when you thought scenes of Rachel Green Alex Levy boning Don Draper Paul Marks (not the other way around, as some might sexistly presume) would stop at last week’s episode of The Morning Show, “The Stanford Student,” the latest installment of the third season, “Strict Scrutiny,” chose to pick up where the banging session motif left off. This time commencing a new one that viewers are made privy to after a few requisite “romantic foreplay” shots of a pizza box on the counter with two half-drunk glasses of wine next to it.
The tracking shot then passes by the sleeping dog (because dogs aren’t as perverse about watching as cats) and into the living room with the multimillion dollar view of the city—that looks like any megalopolis—before finally showing us Alex and Paul continuing to delight in their forbidden tryst from the previous week. But it’s not really Alex and Paul, is it? Or even Jennifer Aniston and Jon Hamm. No, no. All one can truly see is the unlikely fan fiction melding of Friends and Mad Men come to life.
And while it might seem that Green and Draper are worlds (and decades apart), when one stops to think about it, the two really have quite a bit in common. Or maybe, more accurately, Rachel has quite a bit in common with Don’s usual type: Betty Draper (January Jones). For instance, like Rachel, Betty is overly spoiled and a little too into spending money on clothes and other “look at me” frivolities. But, at least in Betty’s defense, she has little else to occupy her time (certainly not the raising of her kids). Even though Rachel could have landed herself a similar trophy wife lifestyle had she not left Barry Farber (Mitchell Whitfield) at the altar.
Another key similarity between the two “TV queens” are that both Betty and Rachel serve as the quintessential representation of the spoiled daughter/Daddy’s princess. Who no man will ever be good enough for (and this is how Electra complexes happen). Except that Rachel would like to believe getting a job has changed her nature. Alas, the true essence of a person (and the effects of their upbringing) never really goes away.
And while Rachel is more like Betty and less like Alex, Paul Marks, though seemingly modeled after a less socially inept Elon Musk, instead has many Don Draper characteristics. Starting with an arrogance and self-assurance that mimics the creative director who was able to make Sterling Cooper change to Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce by season four. Because while the Kennedy Camelot era had just ended in America, Don’s own Camelot era in advertising was just getting started. And so is Paul Marks’ proverbial Camelot era, as he extends his many business endeavors into the world of “legacy media,” cajoled back into a deal he was initially going to back out of thanks to Alex’s batting eyelashes. Granted, he had initially backed out in the first place largely as a result of her actions, so it’s only fair that she should be the one to reel him back in.
Indeed, the development of their attraction since the beginning of The Morning Show’s third season has almost felt as simultaneously prolonged and inevitable as the one between Ross (David Schwimmer) and Rachel (with Rachel taking a little more time to get on Ross’ pining bandwagon). Except, in this case, there are far more risks involved beyond merely “weirding Monica out” or making things awkward for a tight-knit friend group after the unavoidable breakup. At the forefront of those risks is sabotaging the deal that would arrange for Paul to buy UBA. A deal that still hasn’t been locked down, despite Cory’s (Billy Crudup) best efforts to push it through without any more scrutiny from the government.
And yes, the board would surely blanch over the knowledge of Alex and Paul banging, because what would that do for the optics of this deal? For the public would then be keenly aware of a huge conflict of interest. It is this type of high-risk behavior that Don was always known for engaging in throughout Mad Men, and Hamm appears to be attracted to characters with this sense of self-destructive bravado. Aniston, on the other hand, has a flavor for the “goody two-shoes” ilk. And Alex being America’s sweetheart (no matter what dirt on her comes out) plays into her usual typecasting ever since taking on the role of Rachel Green.
What’s more, this isn’t the first time The Morning Show has had TV worlds involving Friends collide, with Reese Witherspoon a.k.a. Big Little Lies’ Madeline Mackenzie having once cameo’d as Rachel’s sister, Jill Green, for a two-episode arc (though “arc” is a strong word for a character who doesn’t change) in season six. However, in contrast to Ross falling for Jill’s coquettish charms, Paul has zero interest in Bradley Jackson (lesbian or not), who shows up after Alex backs out of her agreement to partake in a suborbital rocket launch (yes, it’s all very Bezos meets Musk) with Paul on live TV. The power play on Alex’s part (designed to indicate to Cory how much clout she really has) ends up putting Bradley in the rocket launch seat next to Paul and Cory, and, ultimately, titillates Paul. Because, after all, what other woman would have “the balls” to flake out on him in such a public and humiliating way? And, in cliche fashion, powerful men are turned on by “things” they can’t have, seeing those “things” as a challenge. A new “terrain to conquer.” And oh, how Paul conquers Alex’s by episode six, “The Stanford Student.”
After a brief pause on their “unwittingly” romantic day date, of sorts, in episode four, “The Green Light,” their story comes back into sharp focus. Namely, with regard to their clearly, um, mounting attraction. With Alex playing the Rachel card of delaying gratification for as long as possible before finally giving in after interviewing Paul at his Hamptons house for an episode of Alex Unfiltered. And yes, she was the one who suggested the interview, as though to confirm Paul had feels for her too…by seeing if he would agree to do it. Because Paul never agrees to do interviews with anyone.
Watching how “good” the two seem for one another (that is, in this portion of the program, before the invariable crash and burn that TV drama requires), it’s enough to make one contemplate how Rachel Green existing in the 60s, or Don Draper existing in the 90s, might have made things better, relationship-wise, for the two. Because we all know ending up with Ross Geller or, in Don’s case, at an Esalen-like retreat center, isn’t exactly a happy ending. Maybe Don wouldn’t have felt the need to suppress his more narcissistic, work-obsessed qualities, as Rachel possessed them as well. Maybe their mutual narcissism could have tamped down the other’s in some fashion, or they would have simply felt more free to be who they truly were.
But since this pair of unlikely lovers could never exist in each other’s world due to the limitations of being hemmed in by their respective TV series and decade, The Morning Show offers an unexpected glimpse into a fan fiction narrative that perhaps no one ever thought to concoct before. So yes, they might tell us this is “Alex Levy” and “Paul Marks,” but na. The only way these two can be looked at with each other is: Rachel Green and Don Draper.
On Friday, the actor shared her thoughts on how she has maintained her friendships over the years during a sit-down interview at Inbound 2023, an annual networking conference hosted by Hubspot in Boston.
“Editing. Edit your friendships,” Witherspoon told host and NBC News Daily anchor Zinhle Essamuah. “Everybody out here over 40 knows. If you aren’t adding to my life, get the heck outta my life.”
She continued, “My grandmother used to say, ‘People are either radiators or drains. Stick around the radiators and get rid of the drains.’”
Earlier in the conversation, Essamuah read a statement by a friend of Reese who she likely doesn’t want to edit out of her life: fellow actor Laura Dern.
Dern said in the statement, per Essamuah, that she believed Reese is the “Gold standard of what it means to be a champion. She has always been a champion of art and other artists, as well as, friends and family.”
Reese Witherspoon photographed on stage at INBOUND 2023 on September 08, 2023 in Boston, Massachusetts.
Chance Yeh via Getty Images
Reese and Dern, who co-starred in HBO series “Big Little Lies,” have celebrated their friendship on several occasions over the years.
“You know, you meet people, you’re friends with people, but I say about a few women in my life, they are my sisters,” she said. “I don’t have a sister and I found my sister in Laura. No one makes me laugh like Laura. She’s magical.”
In March last year, Dern celebrated Reese’s birthday in an Instagram post, writing that it was “International I Love Reese Witherspoon Day.”
“Happy birthday to my amazing sister,” she wrote.
Reese announced in March that she and her now-ex-husband, Jim Toth, were calling it quits after 12 years of marriage.
“We have enjoyed so many wonderful years together and are moving forward with a deep love, kindness and mutual respect for everything we have created together,” a statement from the two read at the time.
Reese and Toth finalized their divorce last month, according to TMZ. The former couple have one son together, 10-year-old Tennessee. Reese also shares two adult children, Ava and Deacon Phillippe, with her ex-husband actor Ryan Phillippe.
As a millennial, I’m not ashamed to say I love TikTok as much as any Gen Zer out there. I was recently scrolling through the app while working from home—er, I mean, after work!—and came across not one, not two, but three different videos all referencing a classic, affordable staple: the L.L.Bean Boat & Tote Canvas Bag ($30). Don’t you love it when the algorithm figures you out?
Showing off a perfectly preppy outfit complete with an L.L.Bean tote, Tiktoker @jesicaelise said: “Very rarely will I let you forget that I spent way too much time at a private school.” I felt that one. The video went viral with nearly half a million views and over 500 comments, with users gushing over their love for the timeless, incredibly durable tote bag, which debuted back in 1944.
And if that wasn’t enough proof of its surging popularity, I’ll also add this: After I pitched this story, our social media manager said she just bought one last week because she saw an image on Pinterest of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy wearing it in 1997. Meanwhile, Chloë Sevigny and Reese Witherspoon carried—get it?—the bag into the 2010s.
While the bag is enjoying newfound fame on TikTok, it has clearly never gone out of style in the 78 years since it came on the market. Scroll down to see the TikToks and celebrity photos, and shop the bag for yourself.
Jennifer Garner is many things, among them baby food innovator, actress, parent, and “bless their heart” energy expert. She’s been employing some of these facets in combination on the press tour for her upcoming Apple TV+ series The Last Thing He Told Me, a sort of Stepmom-meets-The Firm thriller based on the Laura Dave novel of the same name, premiering this week. (The baby food is quite good, but does not come into play here.)
Combining parent and actress, she told InStyle that the three kids she shares with ex-husband Ben Affleck will probably take a pass on watching the new series, as they do much of her work. She’s a nice mom, and they’d like to continue seeing her as such, evidently.
“My kids don’t love to watch me in things. They do to be supportive, but I think it’s a little weird to watch your mom kiss someone or cry,” she said. “It’s different. They don’t mind watching their dad. They don’t want to see me sad and they don’t want to see me in a romance. They don’t love seeing me play someone else’s mom, honestly. I don’t know if they’ll watch this.”
Admittedly, Affleck’s movies typically feature much less kissing and crying from dear old dad, though that likely means they skipped The Way Back. Watch mom cry? No. Watch dad pull off Argo’s plane diplomatic rescue moment? Presumably, that one doesn’t hit quite as close to home.
At an event promoting the show in New York City Wednesday night attended by Vanity Fair, Garner delivered some emergency contact realness, nodding at her real-life image as reasonable, responsible mom, a role that her character Hannah also must take on in the show.
“Hannah is, above all else, she’s asked to be the grown-up in the room,” Garner said. “And that is something that I think my life has asked of me at times, and it’s something that I know that I can deliver on.”
Another high-profile Hollywood parent is also behind the scenes of the show: Reese Witherspoon walked the red carpet at the show’s LA premiere Thursday night, her first appearance since announcing her divorce from Jim Toth, citing “irreconcilable differences.” Witherspoon is an executive producer on the series, which is under her Hello Sunshine production umbrella.
Witherspoon praised Garner’s “passion” for the project in a talk with Access Hollywood at the event.
“It was so great to hear her passion. She picked up the phone, we had long conversations about it. It was the perfect part for her,” she said. “I love that she was going to be this kick-ass woman.”
In an exclusive first look at the series in January, Garner told VF that she went on a sort of letter-writing campaign for the role after learning that Julia Roberts, who was originally cast, had to drop out of the project. She was a huge fan of the book, and was determined to nab the part.
“I felt such a connection to the character, even though I’ve been a mom for a minute, I can really understand looking at the world of teenagers and feeling like, Okay, what is the path forward? What am I supposed to do? Just feeling unsure of your place in the landscape,” she said.
In the world of fashion, wins can sometimes be hard to come by. Clothes, shoes, and accessories (especially accessories!) are expensive, particularly the sort that really well-dressed celebrities tend to wear on a regular basis. So, when a sale comes along that just so happens to include eyewear that’s frequently perched atop the noses of some of the world’s most trusted dressers, you have to act on it. Situations like this one don’t happen every day in this business—trust me.
The sunglasses in question aren’t just any sunglasses. Rather, they’re one of the most timeless, beloved, and instantly recognizable pairs, well, ever. If you haven’t already guessed the style, I’m talking about Ray-Ban’s iconic Wayfarers, which were created in 1952 and subsequently worn by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s and James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause.These days, though, you’re much more likely to spot a pair of the classic, square-shaped shades on the celebrity set, with fans ranging from Kate Middleton to Sophie Turner (both royals in their own right), as well as Reese Witherspoon, Olivia Wilde, and more.
If the pair’s storied history or chic fanbase haven’t already convinced you to add a pair of Wayfarers to your eyewear collection, this most certainly will. During Nordstrom’s current spring sale—which sees over 16,000 women’s products red marked ahead of the new season—three color-ways of the best-selling Ray-Ban sunglasses are over 20% off. Keep scrolling to spot the pair on the celebs mentioned above and get in on the sale before it’s too late.
Here’s a headline that you probably didn’t have on your 2023 bingo card: Tom Brady and Reese Witherspoon are allegedly dating, according to Deuxmoi. First of all, the fact that our modern day Gossip Girl is breaking this kind of juicy tea is insanity…but-wait-what?!? Reese only announced her divorce from Jim Toth on March 24.
This is the kind of power couple that will appeal to the entire world: Tom being a major world class, football player of all time. And Reese being actor, director, book club leader extraordinaire. Now, while Reese has had notable relationships with actors like Jake Gylenhaal, this one is the least expected. Also, this is conveniently coming out after Gisele Bunchen was recently linked to billionaire Jeffrey Soffer. Tit-for-tat, anyone?
Each star has three children…making it a full house! Reese has three children – Ava and Deacon – with ex-husband and ex-co star Ryan Phillippe. And a third – Tennessee – with top talent agent, Jim Toth. Brady has two kids – Benjamin and Vivian – with ex-wife Gisele Bundchen. And another – John – with Bridget Moynahan.
Tom had just shared pictures of himself and fellow former NFL players like Rob Gronkowski partying beach-side, which obviously now warrants a million questions. Is Reese there? Has Tom seen Legally Blonde? Has he read any of her Book Club recs such as Daisy Jones & The Six?
While not every blind sent into Deuxmoi is necessarily the truth, this has been dubbed a “Deuxmoi Exclusive”. And it’s been re-confirmed on their Twitter account…so we will take this as fact until Tom and Reese tell us otherwise.
