Reese Witherspoon is renowned for her versatile acting skills after kickstarting her career as a teenager, making her screen debut in The Man in the Moon (1991). From then on, she gained widespread recognition for several projects including Legally Blonde and Walk the Line.
Given that she has built an incredible fortune with her acting talent, she has recently expressed her opinion on the state of Hollywood, particularly regarding AI’s impact on the same.
Reese Witherspoon Got Candid About AI’s Impact on Hollywood
During the most recent season of The Morning Show at PaleyFest L.A. on Friday night, Reese Witherspoon got candid about the recent scenario in Hollywood. While specifically expressing her opinion on the use of AI in the filmmaking world, she took it as a positive change.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, she responded,
“It’s here to stay, so just get used to it. And I think AI is not coming for your job; people who know how to use AI are coming for your job. So learn about it.”
She is rather encouraging to accept the new advancement with which we’re going to explore our creativity further.
She added,
“It should be a tool upon which we lay our own creativity, our own humanity and our own ethics. That’s a whole conversation — for women and people of color and people who are othered sometimes in those developmental spaces really need to get in there… let’s not be scared of it, let’s dive in.”
She is the executive producer of The Morning Show, which organized a panel to discuss the changed landscape in the industry. She was joined by FRIENDS star, Jennifer Aniston, Mark Duplass, Karen Pittman, Nicole Beharie, Tig Notaro, and Nestor Carbonell.
Showrunner Charlotte Stoudt and executive producers Michael Ellenberg and Mimi Leder also joined the panel. While the actress is seemingly supporting the use of AI in the filmmaking industry, online commentators are thinking otherwise.
Internet Reacts to Reese Witherspoon’s Comments on AI Usage in Hollywood
While the star’s comments on AI are quite positive, encouraging the implementation in the industry, it has left the Internet in awe. Many slammed her opinion as she had already built a successful career before the AI wave surged in the cinematic world.
Check out the tweets here.
Millionaire who is already set for life is unconcerned about AI, shocking. Another for the "screw you, I got mine" pile.
— Reid Southen (@Rahll) April 13, 2024
Says the person who owns a media company that works in tandem with the studios and sides with the big corporations. Notice she was REAL QUIET during the strikes.
— NOIVAS. (@NOIVASwright) April 13, 2024
Wanna bet she's invested in Ai.
— Jared Krichevsky (@Monstermash042) April 13, 2024
But they were literally just trying to replace people in that entertainment industry with AI. They’re trying to use AI to minimize the workforce, not increase it.
— I have so many questions? (@english_shamar) April 13, 2024
“It’s not coming for job but also it’s coming for your job so you better learn how to use it” lol ok Reese I love how people who don’t have to worry about money and job security are always the first to tell people to not worry about something
— stayuponelove2 (@cutlets19504) April 13, 2024
Reese witherspoon?
Reese Witherspoon, owner of "Hello Sunshine", a studio co-owned by Blackstone Inc, an investor in several of the largest AI development companies?
that Reese Witherspoon????wow, I wonder if her opinion has some kind of bias?
— R. Daniel Ursus (@CoryMatthews10) April 13, 2024
Many claimed that the actress is quite biased in her views since she has nothing to worry about her future, unlike the commoners, whose jobs are purely at risk.
In the same panel, the Gone Girl actress wondered about the artists’ future in terms of star-making power, worrying if “careers like ours possible ever again?” Stating her worries to her co-panelist, Jennifer Aniston beside her, she continued,
“Are there opportunities for people to really emerge as a star? How do you know with no data transparency? How do we even know if something did well or didn’t do right?”
While she added that the streaming giant, Netflix is “pretty transparent about” how a project performs, she added,
“But other people don’t. And it’s tough as an actor how you negotiate. As a producer, how do you market? If you don’t know where you sit in a landscape, how do you value something?”
She added,
“There’s real amounts of data too, they’ve got a lock on it…They don’t want you to have the advantage, and it’s tough.”
AI has been one of the concerns in the strike, be it artists or writers. With the help of AI, an artist could completely appear in a project which they never performed. Whereas, for writers, their work can be manipulated or replaced, which could drastically reshape Hollywood.
