Reese Witherspoon

Acting

Born 1976-03-22 New Orleans, Louisiana, USA 154 credits Academy Awards 1 Golden Globe Awards 1 BAFTA Awards 1 Screen Actors Guild Awards 1 star on Hollywood Walk of Fame 1 Jupiter Awards 1 Sitges Film Festival Best Actress award 1

Awards

Won 1 Academy Award

Academy Awards 1 won · 1 nominated

2015 Best Actress Nominated Wild
2006 Best Actress Won Walk the Line

Golden Globe Awards 1 won

2006 Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy Won Walk the Line

BAFTA Awards 1 won

2006 Best Actress in a Leading Role Won Walk the Line

Screen Actors Guild Awards 1 won

2006 Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role Won Walk the Line

star on Hollywood Walk of Fame 1 won

— star on Hollywood Walk of Fame Won

Jupiter Awards 1 won

— Jupiter Awards Won

Sitges Film Festival Best Actress award 1 won

1997 Sitges Film Festival Best Actress award Won Freeway

Award data from Wikidata (CC0). Coverage may be incomplete.

Read biography

Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon (born March 22, 1976) is an American actress and producer. She is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and two Golden Globe Awards. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2006 and 2015, and Forbes listed her among the World's 100 Most Powerful Women in 2019 and 2021. In 2021, Forbes named her the world's highest earning actress, and in 2023, she was named one of the richest women in America with an estimated net worth of $440 million. Witherspoon began her career as a teenager, making her screen debut in The Man in the Moon (1991). Her breakthrough came in 1999 with a supporting role in Cruel Intentions, and for her portrayal of Tracy Flick in the black comedy Election. She gained wider recognition for playing Elle Woods in the comedy Legally Blonde (2001) and its 2003 sequel, and for starring in the romantic comedy Sweet Home Alabama (2002). She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for portraying June Carter Cash in the musical biopic Walk the Line (2005). Following a career downturn, during which her sole box-office success was the romantic drama Water for Elephants (2011), Witherspoon made a comeback by producing and starring as Cheryl Strayed in the drama Wild (2014), which earned her a second nomination for Best Actress at the Academy Awards. She has since worked primarily in television, producing and starring in several female-led literary adaptations under her company Hello Sunshine. These include the HBO drama series Big Little Lies (2017–2019), the Apple TV+ drama series The Morning Show (2019–present), and the Hulu miniseries Little Fires Everywhere (2020). For the first of these, she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited Series. She has also produced the film adaptations Gone Girl (2014) and Where the Crawdads Sing (2022), and the miniseries adaptation Daisy Jones & the Six (2023). Witherspoon also owns Reese's Book Club and a clothing company, Draper James. She is involved in children's and women's advocacy organizations. She serves on the board of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) and was named Global Ambassador of Avon Products in 2007, serving as honorary chair of the charitable Avon Foundation dedicated to women's causes.