Reese Witherspoon Says She Has ‘Worked Hard’ for Her Wrinkles: ‘I Like Them’

Playing Madeline Mackenzie on Big Little Lies hit close to home for Reese Witherspoon. Not only did she see her life reflected in most of the characters on the show, but the 43-year-old actress also felt proud to play an older woman who’s gone through a lot in her life.

“One of the things that struck me about Big Little Lies was how I saw my own life reflected in each of the characters because I was a divorced woman, I’d been a single mother, a married mother, and I had another child in a second marriage,” she recently explained to Daily Mail.

“When I saw the first version of it in the editing room, I immediately noticed the little lines on my face and said to myself, ‘I like them, I got them one by one … I worked hard to get these wrinkles,” Reese continued.

Reese felt so proud to look the way she did and wouldn’t change anything about her appearance. “Now I can play women who have lived more and gone through a lot of changes, ” the Oscar winner gushed. “Not simply because I’m in my 40s but because I’ve gone through that kind of evolution myself.”

However, this isn’t the first time that Reese has talked about embracing her aging looks. In a previous interview with Allure, she opened up about being a woman in her 40s and how she has a new way of looking at the world.

“I have a point of view because I’ve been on this planet for 43 years, and I didn’t feel that same way when I was 25. I didn’t have the same things to say,” Reese said at the time. “I’m 43 and I’ve had a whole bunch of experiences, and I can speak with a thoughtfulness about the changes I’d like to see in the world, and … I just feel like I earned that gray hair and my fine lines. I like ’em. I so prefer 43 to 25.”

With time, Reese hopes to shift the conversation about aging. She doesn’t want it to be seen as something negative in Hollywood anymore — for her or anyone else. “I really wish we could shift our perspective on it,” the mom of three once told Now to Love. “It’s happening to every single one of us.”

“We just need to be very good to our skin — just take very good care of it,” Reese continued. “Keep it healthy, and keep it tended to — as we tend to our cars, as we tend to our appliances, as we tend to everything else we tend to.”