While many reduce women's lives to a series of tropes and stereotypes, the 'Legally Blonde' actress has managed to break molds for herself.
Editor's note: This article was originally published on October 25, 2022. It has since been updated.
Reese Witherspoon is in a happy marriage and just celebrated her tenth anniversary. Life is as good as it gets as far as Reese Witherspoon is concerned. But, there was a time when she had given up on marriage. It was Jim Toth, her current husband, who convinced her to get married. While Reese Witherspoon is currently making news over her collaboration with Zoe Saldana on her new limited series From Scratch, the actor-producer has been through a lot in life and her current husband Jim Toth is possibly a small inspiration in her life and work. Toth was a talent agent for Creative Artists Agency. He is also a co-chair of the Stand Up 2 Cancer charity (his father passed away from cancer before he and Witherspoon met). Witherspoon ran into Toth at a party in early 2010 where a man was troubling her and he decided to intervene, according to ELLE.
"It happened out of the blue. This really drunk guy was hitting on me, making such an idiot of himself, yelling at me. He was like, [slurring, scowling, pointing finger in her face] `You don't know me.' And I was like, `Yeah, I know. I don't know you!' Jim came over and said, `Please excuse my friend. He's just broken up with someone.' Jim was a really good friend, pulling him out of that situation. That's just kind of who he is, a really good person." After her very public relationships with Ryan Phillippe and Jake Gyllenhaal, the actor had decided to take a break from a commitment like marriage, Parade mentioned.
By the end of the year, Jim Toth had already posed the question of marriage to her and she said, "Jim said, `I'm gonna show you every day what a good partner is, what a good person is. I'm going to take care of you. I'm gonna do this so much that you're gonna get used to it.' I was like, `What are you talking about?' I've never had anybody like that in my life." The couple got married in 2011 and just celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary last year. Witherspoon even shared a picture on Instagram captioning, "Celebrating 10 years of marriage to my sweet hubby. What a special day with all of our dear friends. Looking back, I can’t believe it has gone so quickly! I guess that’s how it goes with 3 kids, Big LOVE, lots of laughing, non-stop travel, so many dogs, and fun adventures... figuring out this crazy world together. Here’s to many more days in the sun! I ❤️ you, JT."
What we don't realise is that Jim Toth had a hand in giving Witherspoon the producing streak she has taken up with Where the Crawdads Sing and From Scratch. She shares with Harper's Bazaar, "He [Toth] said, 'You should produce movies. You read more books than anybody I know. You should just buy some of them and turn them into films.'" A move she has taken extremely seriously. "We're reading constantly." She sighs. "My brain hurts sometimes." She and her colleagues take shifts sifting through material: "Sometimes I've been reading and watching movies for seven days, and I need a break."
Witherspoon wanted to show the different ways to be a woman to her daughter. "I want to get a female perspective on film that would make my daughter [Ava] understand what it means to be a woman in a different way," she said at the time. With her future projects like this, it won't be too difficult.
References:
https://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/g2801/reese-witherspoon-unbound-612491/?slide=2
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a13533/reese-witherspoon-0216/
https://parade.com/1263801/jessicasager/reese-witherspoon-husband-jim-toth/
Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Matt Winkelmeyer
