Reese Witherspoon played it cool when asked by THR at the Daisy Jones & The Six premiere to reveal what kind of creative notes she offered to the team behind her company Hello Sunshine’s high-profile adaptation of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s best-selling novel.
“I had some notes,” she said with a smile at the show’s premiere on Feb. 23, before reluctantly revealing a few tidbits, specifically about the show’s faux documentary scenes that feature the performers sitting down for their first interviews 20 years after the band’s final performance. “But they were the same notes as the rest of the creative team — about wanting to make sure that the documentary scenes felt as potent as the live footage.”
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That’s all Witherspoon was willing to divulge. Instead, she turned her attention to compliments. “These people know exactly what they’re doing, they really didn’t need anything from me.”
Daisy Jones & The Six details the rise and precipitous fall of that band, from early days toiling away at small gigs through a meteoric rise that culminates in a sold-out show at Chicago’s Soldier Field. Following that performance, the band shocked fans by calling it quits.
Here’s another thing Witherspoon would say about the production: If they ever needed her to jump in front of the camera, she’d be game. “One prerequisite for every project that we do [at Hello Sunshine] is: Would I want to be in it? I desperately wanted to be in this project, but there’s nothing for me to play. I would even play the tambourine in this because I love it so much.”
So much so that even being at the premiere had her feeling like a “proud aunt.” Or cheerleader.
“I’m just their biggest fan,” she says of the Daisy Jones team and stars like Riley Keough, Sam Claflin, Camila Morrone, Will Harrison, Suki Waterhouse, Josh Whitehouse, Sebastian Chacon, Nabiyah Be, Tom Wright and Timothy Olyphant, among others. “I watched how hard they worked for seven, eight months of rehearsing, learning the instruments and trying to play in sync. They did that and it’s such a huge accomplishment.”
Daisy Jones & the Six is now streaming on Prime Video.
A version of this story first appeared in the March 8 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
