Everything good that is happening in Reese Witherspoon's life right now is because the actress wasn't afraid to embrace change. If you think back about eight years, she seemed to have it all -- a marriage to Ryan Phillipe, two great kids and a new Oscar to put on the mantle -- and then it all came crashing down around her. Witherspoon quickly understood that in order to survive the crisis in her personal life, she would need to embrace change. While she moved on from her marriage with Phillipe and began building a life with Jim Toth, her career seemed to stall out.

Witherspoon will be profiled on tonight's episode of 60 Minutes and she explains just how deep some of the comments about her career cut her.

"I was just kind of floundering career-wise ... I wasn't making things I was passionate about. And it was really clear that audiences weren't responding to anything I was putting out there," says Witherspoon. Then along came a 2012 article in The New Yorker that included her name on a list of washed-up stars. "I thought I was reading, like, a profile on another actor," Witherspoon recalls. "Then somewhere down at the end it said ... 'the people who are washed-up' - I mean, it really hurt my feelings."

Not one to stay down for long, those words ultimately ended up shaking up Witherspoon's work choices. Instead of staying purposely stuck in the roles that allowed her to play the same character over and over, she decided to take risks. The first major one came in her newest film, Wild, and it has obviously paid off because the actress is up for both an SAG Award and a Golden Globe for outstanding lead actress.

Witherspoon has claimed that she has never really been anyone's sweetheart, so she's not sure how that became part of her typecasting. Have you caught her performance in Wild? What are your thoughts on her work now that she is taking risks? Tell us in the comments below!

Join the Discussion