Reese Witherspoon Says Anxiety Was Key to Her Career Success

Reese Witherspoon, 49, is an Oscar-winning actor and a number one Hollywood producer. She says the relentless stress she placed on herself is the rationale behind her skilled success.

“I used to be most likely profitable as a result of I had a lot anxiousness. They go hand in hand,” Witherspoon instructed Harper’s Bazaar in an interview revealed Monday.

“I had pressured myself to excessive ranges to point out up at work in an ideal approach. All of us now know — excellent is just not attainable. It is not sustainable. I careworn myself out in service of my job, and it bought me actually, actually far. I am rewarded for my anxiousness and perfectionism,” she mentioned.

However now that she’s getting older, the “Legally Blonde” star says she’s studying to decelerate and be content material with what she’s already achieved.

“I imply, I’ve had an abundance of excellent fortune, nice work alternatives, and labored with a number of the best folks on Earth,” she mentioned.

Witherspoon started appearing at a younger age, touchdown her first main appearing function in “The Man within the Moon” in 1991. She went on to star in a string of movies over the following two decades earlier than turning her consideration to producing, with notable tasks together with “Gone Girl” and “Wild.”

In 2016, she based a media firm referred to as Whats up Sunshine. Since 2019, she’s been producing and starring in Apple TV’s “The Morning Show,” alongside Jennifer Aniston.

Regardless of her box-office success, Witherspoon mentioned that others within the trade nonetheless doubted her skills.

“Even when ‘Gone Woman’ and ‘Wild’ had grossed over $600 million on the field workplace and I bought three Oscars, it nonetheless wasn’t a assure that I may get issues made,” Witherspoon mentioned. “Individuals had been nonetheless questioning whether or not I used to be an actual producer or was simply doing it as an arrogance undertaking.”

This is not the primary time that Witherspoon has talked about how anxiousness has impacted her work.

Talking on the “Las Culturistas” podcast in September, Witherspoon instructed hosts Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang that she’s “a high-anxiety person.”

“It may be actually extremely performance-based,” Witherspoon mentioned. “Like, it’s a must to carry out. You must present up, which is plenty of my anxiousness. I used to have panic assaults, unhealthy panic assaults, like crying.”

A consultant for Witherspoon didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark despatched by Enterprise Insider exterior common hours.

She additionally is not the one Hollywood star who’s credited anxiousness with pushing them ahead.

In January 2024, Emma Stone told NPR that she sees her anxiousness “as a type of a superpower.”

“And if you need to use it for productive issues, if you need to use all of these emotions in these synapses which might be firing for one thing inventive, or one thing that you just’re obsessed with, or one thing fascinating, anxiousness is like rocket gasoline as a result of you may’t assist however get away from bed and do issues, do issues, do issues since you’ve bought all of this power inside you,” Stone mentioned.

Talking to People in Could 2024, Ryan Reynolds mentioned he is realized to make use of his anxiousness as a bonus at work.

“My job advantages drastically,” Reynolds mentioned. “Individuals who have anxiousness are consistently considering into the longer term. You are consistently, ‘What if this occurs? What if that occurs?’ You are all the time telling your self tales.”