Pioneers
HELLO SUNSHINE
Shifting the narrative
By Lucy Feldman
IT’S ABOUT 12 MINUTES INTO THE Q&A WHEN REESE Witherspoon starts to cry. “A long time ago, people drew some lines on this world,” she says, reflecting on families separated by immigration policy. “We are just part of a common humanity.”
She’s talking to Patricia Engel, the author of Infinite Country, for a Reese’s Book Club event in front of a Zoom audience of publishing professionals, influencers and readers. “I didn’t think I was going to get emotional,” she tells the far-flung crowd, likewise moved by Engel’s story of a family divided between Colombia and the U.S. “You’re not the only one who cried, Reese,” someone writes in the chat. And later: “This story needs to be made into a movie.”
That’s the exact sentiment that drives Witherspoon, 45, who has transformed her role in Hollywood from movie star to business leader—and maker of her own fortune. After rising as a child actor, she shot to household-name status for 2001’s Legally Blonde, going on to win an Oscar in 2006 for Walk the Line. But even after those triumphs, for a time she struggled to find satisfying roles in Hollywood, where women’s stories have long been sidelined. She discovered a way to change that in a lifelong love: books. Celebrating books through her book club—and adapting them for the screen—is now the foundation of Witherspoon’s business at Hello Sunshine, the media company she founded in 2016, where she’s established a track record for spotting, and making, hits.
At Hello Sunshine, Witherspoon picks titles for the book club. Of the 54 selections to date, often titles that hit a sweet spot between commercial and literary, more than 30 have gone on to make the New York Times best-seller list, making a tap from Witherspoon one of the most coveted accolades in publishing. And her executives have built a machine around accessing intellectual property and swooping in on screen rights, evaluating more than 1,000 books, articles, original scripts, pitches and life-rights documents each year. The company has produced buzzy series based on books like Big Little Lies and Little Fires Everywhere, which was also a Reese’s Book Club pick, and has a number of titles on option.
Before Hello Sunshine, Witherspoon ran another company, Pacific Standard, which produced and the first season of all based on books. But Witherspoon had invested her own funds to get that company off the ground, and it wasn’t enough, even after those hits. So she began looking beyond Hollywood. “I didn’t have money to
