Exclusive | Reese Witherspoon recalls her first phone call to Jennifer Aniston for The Morning Show: ‘I’m not going to do it unless you do it’

Reese Witherspoon, who’s never shied away from collaborating with the actors she was once competing with in the 1990s, finds her bond with Jennifer Aniston to be no different. It’s part of her second nature to pick up the phone and call up another female actor and ask her to help her give a new lease of life to a riveting read. “Collaboration can be your greatest advantage. So we’re so lucky we’ve known each other, but also that we were able to call each other and say, ‘This is a great book. Do you want to do it? Because I’m not going to do it unless you do it.’ So the power of us working together is really what made this happen from the beginning,” the actor tells SCREEN.

Mimi Leder, lead director of The Morning Show, believes actors like Reese and Jennifer, best known for their romantic comedies like Legally Blonde, Sweet Home Alabama, Just Go With It, and The Breakup, have now come into their own. “There’s a maturity for all of us, from the ’90s to today. They’ve always tackled interesting material, but these roles and world have such a complexity. These roles are very much not like them. As you grow older and become smarter, you gain the wisdom to tackle such roles because you care about the world,” she says. Showrunner Charlotte Stoudt also chimes in: “They’ve done both comedy and really serious drama. They’re so skilled at the whole rainbow. The show is just trying to dial up on that.”

Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon from the sets of The Morning Show. (Photo: TheMorningShow/Twitter)

Mimi feels both Reese and Jennifer were great fits for their parts because they excel at the ‘dramedic’ tone of the newsroom drama. “From the beginning, walking the line between comedy and drama was always the tone we wanted. How do we hit this tone? We have these great comedic actors who are extremely brilliant dramatic actors. Dramatic high is just about being up there while keeping it grounded, authentic, and real. Just a slight elevation of hilarity was a very hard tone to find. The writing is so extraordinary that you can be in the middle of something very serious, and then something hilarious happens, but you’ve to still be very real. I’d say these actors have grown up, and are now the fearless ladies we all love,” says Mimi.

It helps that all the three shows aren’t just coldblooded thrillers, but are also bathed in a female gaze. They’re all relationship dramas, with family and friends as much a part of the central conflicts as social, political, or economic evils. “Family can be very, very important and very stabilizing, or your friendships can also be so important too. There are things about this world that very much mirror the film and television world where, there’s a lot of phoniness, but who your real friends are, who really shows up for you, is usually a very small group of people. And that, I think, is at the heart of this show,” says Reese.

Reese Witherspoon as Bradley Jackson on The Morning Show.

An inextricable part of her The Morning Show character Bradley Jackson’s conflict has been to strike a balance between her troubled family and her idealistic approach to journalism. At the end of season 3, which released two years ago, Bradley surrenders to the FBI after trying to conceal the fact that her brother was a part of the January 6 United States Capitol attacks. In order to atone her sins, Bradley goes on a covert, unauthorized mission to uncover a larger conspiracy. “This is the first time you’ve seen her feeling a little cowardly. And a little quiet, which was fun to play,” says Reese, who’s lent a lot of fire to her character over three seasons. “My character goes to a very bizarre place this season. I can’t say where. But it is completely unexpected and out of nowhere and I think people will be shocked,” she adds.

How The Morning Show is different from the other shows based on books is that it constantly keeps on updating itself, almost like a buzzing newsroom. “I think this show is just very forward thinking. It’s dealing with things that people are talking about right now. We’re talking about AI (Artificial Intelligence), Deepfake, workplace dynamics that are always prevalent, high net worth individuals buying networks, and billionaires buying rockets. We didn’t think that would happen, then it happened two years later. And it’s fun to be part of a show where you’re really talking about things that people are discussing at their dinner tables,” says Reese.

Besides shining a light on everything that’s wrong with the world, The Morning Show doesn’t mind looking inward and not spare the rot in journalism either. “The world of journalism is changing every minute. Who do you trust? Who do consumers actually look to for the truth? What is the truth? So, we’re really lucky that we had already established this format and then we get to expand into all these different storylines. And we’ve been able to track it and trace it over the past seven or so years that we’ve been making the show. So I think we’re seeing the evolution of modern broadcasting and journalism unravel in this kind of soapy, fun format too. And we get to learn about what goes on behind the scenes as well,” explains Reese.

Also Read — Exclusive | The Morning Show actors Billy Crudup, Mark Duplass open up on their characters giving it back to Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Anniston this season

The actor admits feeling conflicted when it comes to consuming news personally as well. “I think journalism is so important, an ability to look at things from a vantage point that’s not being manipulated. And I find that I’m confused all the time. Like I sometimes don’t know what to trust or where to get news from,” says Reese, who believes that like her character Bradley, there are more number of lone wolves howling the truth. She adds, “It’s also interesting to watch the rise of the individual journalist as a voice to be trusted. You’re seeing that more and more now, and I’m interested to follow that space. Can that voice that feels so independent be corrupted by greed or the ability to buy their company?”