Reese Witherspoon, Patricia Arquette, and More Talk Renée Zellweger Criticism

Gwynne Watkins
·Writer, Yahoo Entertainment

Reese Witherspoon

The year’s top actresses have strong opinions about how women are treated in Hollywood — as they should. For The Hollywood Reporter’s annual actress roundtable, Reese Witherspoon (Wild), Patricia Arquette (Boyhood), Amy Adams (Big Eyes), Julianne Moore (Still Alice), Laura Dern (Wild), Hilary Swank (The Homesman), and Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything) weighed in on the realities of being a successful working actress. And when it came to issues like the recent negative attention surrounding Renée Zellweger’s appearance, they did not mince words.

“It’s horrible. It’s cruel and rude and disrespectful, and I can go on and on and on,” Witherspoon said in regards to the media’s treatment of Zellweger, whose face appeared to have changed dramatically in a recent public appearance. “Why do we have to tear other women down to build another woman up? It drives me crazy,” Witherspoon continued. “Like, this one looks great without her makeup, but that one doesn’t look good without her makeup, and it’s all just a judgment and assault that I don’t — look, men are prey to it as well. I just don’t think it’s with the same sort of ferocity.”

The actresses defended Renée Zellweger, who made headlines recently at a recent appearance 

The actresses also defended their colleagues when the conversation rolled around to 2014’s massive photo hacking ring, which involved private pictures of celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence being stolen from their personal accounts and posted online. “I feel really strongly that there’s nothing deviant about two lovers sharing sexual intimacy. That is normal…. What is deviant is when a community decides that they can break into your sexuality, steal that from you, insert themselves, observe your private sexuality,” said Arquette.

Patricia Arquette earlier this year

Both Lawrence and Zellweger’s issues reflect the amount of scrutiny and criticism that women in the spotlight are expected to swallow without complaint. But they don’t have to take it lying down, as Arquette demonstrated with a particularly awesome anecdote about standing up to an aggressive paparazzo. “He kept following us. And I said, ‘OK, leave us the f--- alone.” And he goes, ‘Nice, mom! Good job!’” said Arquette. “ I said, ‘I’m teaching my daughter. If a man is following you and you tell him to go away and he doesn’t, you turn around and say, ‘F--- you!’ as loud as you can.”

Read the full actress roundtable over at THR. 

Photo credit: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, Andreas Rentz/Getty Images