Feminine influence has been growing in Hollywood every year – thank goodness! Now three of Tinseltown’s most powerful people, Reese, Shonda and Margot, happen to be women – strong, confident and wildly successful ones, at that!
Here’s a look at the impact the trio are having on the entertainment industry and beyond.
Reese Witherspoon
She became a household name thanks to her memorable films such as Vanity Fair, Walk the Line and Legally Blonde, but, frustrated with a lack of good, powerful and representational roles for women in Hollywood, Oscar-winner Reese Witherspoon, 48, decided to solve the problem herself.
In fact, Reese almost gave up on Tinseltown altogether in 2011 after reading yet another disappointing script – until she turned her love of books into ideas for incredible, female-focused films.
Launching her own production company, Pacific Standard, Reese optioned her first two books that would turn into hugely successful movies – Gone Girl and Wild. Since then, she’s never looked back, with her production company becoming one of Hollywood’s most successful, morphing into the bigger Hello Sunshine in 2016.
Reese is responsible for the creation of programmes such as The Morning Show, in which she stars in alongside Jennifer Aniston, Big Little Lies and Daisy Jones and the Six, as well as the movie adaptation When the Crawdads Sing. Big Little Lies was her third success as a producer. She says, “No one was offering me opportunities to grow my company until my third hit… A guy has one hit at Sundance and he gets Jurassic World!”
Reese can now command more than $1.56 million per episode of The Morning Show – and she sold a majority stake of Hello Sunshine for $1.4 billion in 2021.
“I felt a responsibility to my daughter and all the women in the world to create more opportunities for women,” explains Reese. “We’re 50 percent of the population. I now know what I’m good at and I know what I’m not good at.
“As I’ve aged, my passions have become more intensified. I truly believe that like-minded people who get together and push toward a greater good can create real change in this world. I only believe that because of the friendships I’ve made with extraordinary women.
“Before that, I felt so lonely and it was really hard for me. A lot of the conversations I was having in rooms in Hollywood, well, I felt like I was the only one having them.
“When we all started getting together, I realised that women were having the same conversations across town in a different boardroom or on a different set. It was enormously comforting to know that I wasn’t pushing a rock up a hill.”
Shonda Rhimes
The creator of hits such as Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and Bridgerton, Shonda Rhimes’ influence in Tinseltown has been enduring and powerful – and is showing no signs of slowing down.
Known for her strong, confident and complicated female characters, the prolific producer is a true Hollywood heavyweight. One industry insider noted, “Her influence can be measured with metrics more profound than total viewing hours. Her shows have changed the way the world speaks.”
Shonda, 54, says, “I don’t consider myself one of the most powerful women in television. I consider myself one of the most powerful people in television. I don’t think there is a difference in how powerful women are and how powerful men are. And I don’t think it weighs on my life at all. It’s my job.”
Her current runaway success, Bridgerton, was lauded for its revolutionary and inclusive casting. Her production company Shondaland has just signed an exclusive deal with Netflix – meaning there is plenty more to come.
“I’m really not interested in doing something we’ve done before,” she tells. “There are stories to be told that are still untold and characters to be portrayed that haven’t been portrayed correctly. So there’s work to be done.
“The female characters are the leaders of my stories and that the pretty ones are the men. And that’s okay,” she says. “I love the exploration of what happens when you go from the belief in the magical romantic fiction to the realities of what an actual relationship is, can be and cannot be.
“Most women have been conditioned from birth to believe that romance and being loved is the most powerful, amazing, special thing that can ever happen to them. I’ve been writing a deconstruction of that my entire career.”
Margot Robbie
She has come a long way from Ramsay Street! Former Neighbours star Margot Robbie has made an incredible mark in Hollywood over the past few years with her prowess as a producer.
She burst into Tinseltown’s upper echelon with her breakout role in The Wolf of Wall Street and now commands more than $33 million per movie she stars in. But her true influence lies in her work behind the camera – most notably with the phenomenon that was Barbie, which she both starred in and produced.
Margot, 34, had a strong vision for the film. A feminist was to take on the 1950s doll that was masterfully created with the help of director Greta Gerwig.
“I feel there was a seismic shift in my life 11 years ago with The Wolf of Wall Street. Now, after everything with Barbie this year, it feels like this past decade has been wild. It’s far beyond anything I could ever have dreamed for myself.”
Margot is currently pregnant with her first child with husband Tom Ackerley, 34. She had a further hit with her production company LuckyChap earlier this year with Saltburn. The star is currently remaking Ocean’s Eleven and turning video game The Sims into a movie.
“Originality is definitely the key,” she says. “But the thing about being original is you can’t do the thing that worked before. As much as we’re trying to celebrate the moment we’re in right now, our minds immediately go to what’s next. You can’t be original again – you have to be original every time.
“Whether it’s I, Tonya – the tone of that was so completely original – or Barbie, they’re all very bold. Sometimes you hit it out of the park and it’s amazing. But even if you didn’t hit it out of the park, you can’t not keep taking those big swings.”
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