Reese Witherspoon’s media company Hello Sunshine held its second annual Shine Away conference on Saturday, with plenty of face time with the star and her A-list friends.

After welcoming the 700 guests to Nya Studios in Los Angeles for the event – ​​consisting of two days of panels, activations and programming focused on empowering and connecting women – Witherspoon sat down for a conversation with Laura Dern and Octavia Spencer. The trio chatted about their close relationship and how they’ve supported each other in and out of the industry, with Dern joking, “Basically I run everything through Reese, from my romantic life to the jobs I’m supposed to be doing.”

Witherspoon – who has produced a slew of projects in recent years, including The Morning Show, The last thing he told me, Little beautiful things, The truth is told And Daisy Jones & The Six – spoke about her early days as a producer, starting Hello Sunshine at the age of 34, despite admitting she didn’t know what she was doing.

She explained that she spent her first twenty years in Hollywood just looking for jobs, saying, “I didn’t have time to look at the bigger macro, like, what is our business?” How do they make money? Wait, why aren’t there parts for women? Wait, why don’t I see people of color behind the scenes? For example, why don’t I see writers who bring a different perspective? And that got me thinking. When I was 34, I had enough foundation under myself, within our company; I also had enough money to help with the financing, and I thought, I’m not going to take money from people who don’t want the change I want to see.

Still, Witherspoon admitted, “It was scary because I didn’t know if I was going to get my money back. Every day I woke up and thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m not getting my money back.’ But I would rather bet on myself and lose that money trying my best. I woke up every day and thought, ‘I am my own destiny.’”

The star also looked back at a moment after 2017’s success Big little lieswhich earned 16 Emmy nominations and eight wins – after producing both Gone girl And Wild in 2014.

“Right after that I had a moment Big little lies — I had self-financed my first company and I thought: okay, Big little lies won all these Emmys and Wild And Gone girl got all these Oscar nominations and we made $600 million at the box office. I had four employees and I couldn’t keep the lights on,” Witherspoon recalls. “I remember the accountant calling me and saying, ‘You haven’t made enough money producing those three things to keep four employees.’ So I thought, ‘I’m doing something wrong.’ And then I had this aha moment. I was like, I need help. I don’t have a business plan.” Hello Sunshine soon brought on Sarah Harden as CEO, who helped Witherspoon build infrastructure and hire executives.

Dern also noted how the female-centric atmosphere continued Big little lies had the stars having conversations they weren’t having before, as she recalled standing next to Witherspoon and co-star Meryl Streep “and we started talking about money, and I said, ‘I have to tell you, this is the first time that I ‘I once had someone to talk to.’ And I was going through a vulnerable time and raising kids on my own and had so many questions, and the advice I got from you was, you need a financial advisor who is a woman to talk to you about these things. And our first conversation was about caring for elderly parents and getting kids to school, and no one had ever had these conversations with me.”

Dern added that her relationships with her fellow actresses are “the greatest love stories, but they told us that we wouldn’t get along as well if we only had one woman in the room.”

“That’s the thing: they told us that as women on set together, there’s usually just one of you because you’re competitive. And I found that when there are multiple women on set, it’s the opposite,” Spencer echoed, shouting out her old friendships with Melissa McCarthy, Allison Janney and Viola Davis.

Witherspoon explained how consumers and audiences can also support female creators, emphasizing: “If there’s a show on Netflix or whatever, just hit the ‘like’ button. You don’t know how important that ‘like’ button is. Just ‘like’ it, because that actually affects the salaries of the women who made it. They control all that data… Even if you put it in your watchlist, that little behavior is valuable.

Following the panel, Witherspoon participated in a conversation with Spanx founder Sara Blakely about running their two female-led businesses; she again reflected on the early days of Hello Sunshine, noting, “I found it very difficult to understand why, after having one successful film and then another successful film, people didn’t understand that this wasn’t just a fluke . My first two books I chose were Gone girl And Wildand they both became number 1 within three months of me choosing them. And people said, ‘Yes, but can you do it again?’

Witherspoon continued that as she and Kidman chose an option Big little lies, one of the financiers called her manager just before the taping and asked, “Do you really think this is going to work, Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman on this television show?” Because we are taking a big risk here.” She added: “It turned out to be something amazing that wasn’t just something women wanted to watch, but men wanted to watch too.”

Olivia Munn, Amanda Kloots, comedian Heather McMahan and athletes Diana Flores, Alex Morgan and Candace Parker also took part in Saturday’s event, which featured a musical performance by The Castellows; Naomi Watts will take the stage on Sunday. The second annual Shine Away was connected by AT&T.