Reese Witherspoon On Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson Comparison: Why Being On The Same List Hurt Her Feelings

Reese Witherspoon is on a recent career upswing, with her production company behind two of the year’s biggest critical and commercial successes, Gone Girl and Wild. It comes after a period of personal and professional difficulty for Witherspoon. As she tells Charlie Rose on 60 Minutes tonight, her divorce from Ryan Phillippe led her to spend a few years just trying to “feel better.” She began to “flounder” in her career because, in Witherspoon’s words, she was not doing projects she was passionate about.

It was reading an article in a noted literary publication, The New Yorker, in 2012 that led to a low point for Witherspoon. She was not prepared to see her own name in the article. She inadvertently scanned a section at the bottom that listed “washed up actors.” Her name was among them, along with other once-formidable Hollywood heavyweights. It hit Witherspoon emotionally.

“I thought I was reading a profile on another actor and somewhere at the end it said, you know, the people who are washed up and I think it included me, Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson and I remember just being like, okay. I mean, it really hurt my feelings. Really hurt my feelings.”

The piece was published just as Witherspoon had moved on to a new relationship with now-husband Jim Toth and had their son Tennessee, now 2. Witherspoon and Phillippe are parents to Ava, 15 and Deacon, 11.

Witherspoon will reunite with her Walk the Line co-star Joaquin Phoenix in January, with the release of Inherent Vice. Witherspoon won an Academy Award for her performance in Walk the Line as June Carter Cash. She has been nominated for a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award for her performance in Wild as Cheryl Strayed, who wrote an account of her trek to resolve personal issues on the Pacific Crest Trail.

Thank you everyone for the awesome Twitter chat! Here is a picture of @CherylStrayed and I on the trail. #WILDmovie pic.twitter.com/WRyYauG1xg

— Reese Witherspoon (@RWitherspoon) December 17, 2014

Witherspoon started her own production company, Pacific Standard, in 2011 with Bruna Papandrea. Papandrea was behind such films as Warm Bodies and the Sean Penn-starring biopic Milk.

Although Reese’s production company produced Wild and Gone Girl, she did not star in the latter film. Producer David Fincher thought Witherspoon was not the best fit for the role in the critically-acclaimed movie, which starred Ben Affleck. Gone Girl has made $300 million at the box office since its release.

[Reese Witherspoon image: AP/Joel Ryan via The Columbian]