Reese Witherspoon is determined to make entertaining content "without exploiting women"

Reese - who founded the Hello Sunshine media company in 2016 - explained: "In the past four years, I’ve emphasised positivity and optimism.

"There’s a tendency to delight in the trauma of women. We see it in the news constantly, and I believe that you can create engaging, deep entertainment without exploiting women.

"Obviously, at this point in life, comedy is a superpower, so at our company we’re really focusing on comedy. I don’t think things have to be non-impactful just because they’re really entertaining.

"Especially after this year, we’re looking to our TV shows and our films to show us a hopeful side of humanity."

Reese also explained how the rise of streaming services has helped to transform the TV industry, and challenge long-held beliefs about audiences.

The Oscar-winning star - who is one of the highest-paid actresses in the world - told Interview magazine: "It’s really interesting how streaming opened up the world of data and the world of media consumption to a global endeavour that could really measure where the audiences were and what they were seeing, and it actually disproved those beliefs. Women are consuming more media than men. There’s empirical data to support that.

"Those audiences are there and have been there, but have been greatly underserved.

"It’s also like, 'If you never put a women-focused film out, or a film with a black female lead in it, then how are you ever going to know?' Our salaries are based on those measurements as well, which is radically unfair, right?"