‘What do girls in bikinis have to do with solving crime?’

Growing up, Reese Witherspoon’s father was a huge James Bond fan; which meant he watched a lot of 007 movies.

But he questioned why the girls were wearing bikinis, and young Reese asked himself what their revealing clothing had to do with solving a crime.

The Oscar-winning actress and now novelist says that’s why she wanted her new thriller to focus on a woman with a unique talent rather than her sexual appeal.

Witherspoon, 49, is known for her roles on Legally Blonde and The Morning Show, but now she’s written her first book of adult fiction.

Co-written with bestselling author Harlan Coben, Gone Before Goodbye tells the story of Maggie, a talented surgeon caught in the middle of a deadly conspiracy.

Speaking exclusively to BBC News, he admits that part of him was worried: “Oh my God, why did I do this?” – but he also says he’s excited to see his idea come to life.

“When Reese and I met and he gave me this idea, I said, ‘wow, this is good. We can do something with this,'” Coben says.

“And I immediately pulled out my notebook and we started talking. Three hours back and forth.

“We continued to talk face to face, take notes, receive emails, messages.

“When we decided to do this, we both became completely obsessed with the idea of ​​this novel.”

Witherspoon, who already runs an influential book club that selects popular books like Where the Crawdads Sing, adds that she mainly cares about how other writers will receive it. “I have a lot of respect for writers,” he says.

Witherspoon was born in New Orleans to a medical doctor father and a mother who worked as a nurse.

Her breakthrough role came in the 1999 teen drama Cruel Intentions, alongside ex-husband Ryan Phillippe.

Legally Blonde, released in 2001, catapulted her into a major stardom, and was followed by roles such as country singer June Carter Cash in 2006’s Academy Award-winning Walk The Line.

Witherspoon says her parents’ work inspired the characters in her new novel.

“I grew up in a medical military family and grew up on a military base, so I was surrounded by other moms and dads who were medical military people,” she says.

“There was a sense of service, and what they were doing was an important service to their country as well as to humanity.”

“We both have the view that doctors are heroes,” adds Coben, who is married to a pediatrician. “They really are. I mean, it’s a great job.”

Coben says they both hope the lead character, Maggie, will feel “real to people.”

“We wanted to write a really great thriller,” he said. “We want this book, you go to bed at 11 o’clock at night, you think you can read it for 10 minutes, the next thing you know it’s three or four in the morning.

“And you become deliriously happy and get that wonderful feeling when you are completely absorbed in a book.

“I love that feeling. I know Reese loves it too.”

In the book, Maggie lost her medical license after a series of tragedies, but was thrown a lifeline by a former colleague.

The theme of career setbacks is familiar to Witherspoon, who starred in a string of poorly received films in the years after her Oscar win and her 2008 divorce from Phillippe, with whom she shares two children.

In 2014, he began an interview explaining how the breakdown of his marriage affected his career.

“You really can’t be very creative when your brain feels like scrambled eggs,” he told CBS’s 60 Minutes. “I was floundering career-wise. I wasn’t doing the things I was passionate about.”

When asked whether her personal experience of career failure inspired the plot of her book, Witherspoon says: “I think every great story has a character who gets down on his knees. We start the story with him on his knees.”

The book is “a great place to start,” he adds, “because it can really only go up from there.”

Witherspoon’s acting career picked up again. And through his production company, Hello Sunshine, he emphasized: celebrating strong female characters He became known for films and TV series such as The Morning Show and Big Little Lies, which he produced and starred in.

I ask Witherspoon how rare it is to see a female character like Maggie who is less about her sexual appeal and more about her special talent.

“Growing up I always watched James Bond movies, my dad was obsessed with them but I thought why am I like this? [the girls] “They’re all in bikinis and I don’t see what that has to do with solving the crime,” she replies.

“If I were to make a thriller, I wanted the woman to be at the center of it. I wanted her to have a unique skill that everyone in the world wants, but she doesn’t even realize it, and she doesn’t need to shoot a gun or punch bad guys. She’s actually very smart, very intuitive, and an incredible surgeon.”

But Witherspoon argues that the film industry still has a way to go in creating such roles for women.

When I ask if there is still a lack of strong female leads in Hollywood, the famous actress says: “I always see the void, the white void.

“I started Hello Sunshine in 2011 because I wasn’t seeing complex storytelling for women in the cinema world.

“So in a way, I was taking the relationships I had from 30 years of acting and helping to shine a light on women who were ready for these opportunities.”

Entertainment reporter Lauren Morris believes Witherspoon is “pretty smart” about building her business empire.

“She has a book club where she promotes books, often focusing on women’s stories. Then she has a production company where she adapts it for television or film, and she often stars in it herself,” she says.

“It’s a good business model and it’s working well for him.”

His famous novels, which are among the books published by stars such as Keanu Reeves and Millie Bobby Brown, have become very popular in recent years.

Often, collaborations involve a ghostwriter or co-writer who does most of the writing with little input from the celebrities. Reeves admitted this to BBC News last yearwhen he said that his novel was written mostly by British science fiction writer China Miéville.

But Witherspoon and Coben insist that’s not the case for them. Witherspoon initially brought the idea to Coben, and the pair said they were both involved in the writing process; so much so that – according to Witherspoon – “we couldn’t figure out who wrote what.”

Some of Coben’s books have recently been adapted for the small screen, and the mystery thriller Fool Me Once is one of Netflix’s titles. Most watched TV series last year.

So will Gone Before Goodbye get the same treatment? According to Coben, the answer is yes.

“I think it will be adapted one day. I think I have someone in mind who I think would want to play Maggie, but I’m not going to say anything,” she says.

Could he be thinking of Witherspoon? He laughs. “Yes.”

I ask Witherspoon if she sees herself in Maggie.

“Every character I play is a part of my personality,” he replies. “My personality is a big cake. Every character is a piece of the cake.”

So, after conquering cinema, television, book clubs and now novels, what’s next?

Witherspoon laughs: “Wow, when you say that, I want to lie down.”

“I’m really enjoying this moment. This is a big new frontier for me. And it made me feel like, God, creativity doesn’t stop at any age. It just keeps going.”

Gone Before Goodbye was released in the UK on 23 October.