Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston Both Receive Golden Globes Nominations for 'The Morning Show'
Between heading up her own production company, Pacific Standard, running the Draper James lifestyle brand, and starring in the second season of Big Little Lies, Reese Witherspoon certainly knows how to keep busy.
Up next: her new Apple TV+ drama, The Morning Show, which also stars Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carrell, and just picked up three Golden Globes nominations.
Here's what we know about the show so far.
The series premiered back in November
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The series not so subtly alludes to Matt Lauer's firing from the Today show.
Per a tweet from Witherspoon back in March, the show "reveals what happens in the fast-paced world of broadcast news," and now we know that her character plays a newcomer to that world, and a potential rival for a longtime host played by Jennifer Aniston, as she deals with the fallout from her co-host's departure.
The series will mark Aniston's first recurring TV role since she wrapped Friends back in 2004. Witherspoon and Aniston also co-own the show and will executive produce it.
But this isn't the first time the Witherspoon and Aniston have worked together. Witherspoon played Rachel Green's younger sister on the popular NBC show back in 2000.
The entire show was redeveloped in the wake of the #MeToo movement.
"When we started, the show was just a book, and nothing had happened with Harvey Weinstein or Les Moonves yet. The Roger Ailes scandal had happened the year before," Witherspoon said in an interview with Natalie Portman for Harper's Bazaar.
"Then, in October 2017, all those stories started to break about the way women in media were treated. We decided we needed to start from square one and redevelop everything with more of a slant about the truth coming out in media and people being held accountable for their behavior."
Aniston spent time at Good Morning America to prepare for her role.
“I was at Good Morning America at 5 a.m. to do some shadow work,” Aniston told EW. “What a crazy world! From 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. it’s like a ghost town, and then slowly all the lights start turning on and all the sounds start getting louder and louder and louder, and then all of a sudden it’s this mad, insane, well-oiled machine and everyone’s somehow calm.”
Witherspoon, too, did extensive research into the world of daytime TV. “I spent a lot of time with news producers who have been doing this all their lives, and obviously a lot of journalists," she told EW.
"Every time I was on shows or could talk to somebody, I would ask them lots of questions, like: Why did you do this? Where did you come from? What was your local market? How did you ascend? What were your curveballs? What are you passionate about? What did you get a degree in? How’d you get here?”
Apple went ahead and gave the show a two-season order.
House of Cards alum Jay Carson is writing the series, which will have an original story, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, Brian Stelter's book Top of the Morning, which chronicles the behind-the-scenes drama of shows like Today and Good Morning America, "provided additional background."
At this point, it's unclear how much Apple paid for the show—which is only the second time the tech giant ordered a program straight-to-series—though multiple outlets were reportedly in a bidding war over the concept.
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