Beyond Beautiful: 13 Empowering Portraits From EW's Shoot

Reese Witherspoon, Kerry Washington, Eva Longoria, and Elizabeth Banks got together recently for Entertainment Weekly‘s latest issue: Beyond Beautiful. The four stars dished on everything from being a woman in Hollywood to wage gaps and social media. See images from the photoshoot ahead, and pick up the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly, on newsstands Friday.

The four women are all changing the game — whether through stepping behind the camera or expanding to new industries. Longoria, 40, not only stars in the NBC series Telenovela, but serves as an executive producer for the show, also adding directing credits to her resume as she helmed the January episode “The Hurricane.” Banks, 41, also recently took a seat in the director’s chair, leading 2015’s Pitch Perfect 2 as she continues her busy acting career. The 39-year-old Washington is occupied enough with her Scandal schedule, but finds the time for activism, gigs as a creative consultant, and an upcoming project as the star and Executive Producer of HBO’s Confirmation. For her part, the 39-year-old Witherspoon recently kicked off her own empire with the opening of Draper James, as she continues her onscreen work as the star and executive producer of HBO’s Big Little Lies.

“I think it was partially internal,” Banks told EW during the Beyond Beautiful roundtable. “I felt very underused. I went to a really competitive college. I went to grad school. I’m competitive naturally as a human being. And suddenly I was in an industry that said, ‘You can just sit over there and wait and we’ll call you.'”

“Katniss Everdeen is the biggest female superstar of the last three years and she gets not one, but two boys next to her on the poster,” Banks told EW of the Hunger Games character in a conversation about the statistics of female stars in movies, commenting on how the leading women seem to always be outnumbered by men. “She’s gotta have two.”

“I remember starting on Twitter. I loved the immediate way I could correct things,” Longoria told EW of speaking out on social media. “At the time there were just so may lies. It was stupid stuff, like ‘Eva’s pregnant, Eva’s pregnant, Eva’s pregnant.’ I’m like, ‘Guys, I ate a burger. I’m not pregnant’… because my mom would call!”

In the chat, Longoria discovered she and Witherspoon once went after the same project. “You and I were chasing the same property, I think you got it,” she told her co-cover star. “I was like ‘Yes!’ that Reese got it as opposed to another male producer.” The two then considered the idea of partnering in the future.

“It reminds me of this line that Shonda Rhimes wrote on our show that has really resonated with African-Americans,” Washington recalled to EW. “It’s this idea you have to be twice as good to get half of what they have. It’s something that most black people I talk to, when they heard that line, it completely resonated with how they were raised and the messaging their parents gave them. ‘That’s just the truth.’ I think it’s the same for women. You just know, you have to be twice as good. In a way, until girls don’t have that feeling, we will not have done our jobs. That’s almost the point: to not feel the pressure to be extraordinary.”

“We have all these ‘Women in Hollywood this’ — and I love it! I love that we get together and celebrate each other and that we’re doing this — but the need to do this is the problem,” Washington commented. “It’ll be so exciting when we don’t have to do this because we’re just equal players at the table.”

“About four years ago I got sent an awful, terrible script,” Witherspoon told EW. “And this male star was starring in it, and there was a girlfriend part. And I thought, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. No, I’m not interested.’ They said, ‘Well this actress is chasing it, that actress is chasing it: three Oscar winners and two huge box office leading ladies.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, that’s where we’re at? You’re fighting to be the girlfriend in a dumb comedy? For what?’ And by the way, two Oscar winners did it.”

“I hear that all the time. As I was coming up in my career: ‘We don’t want to see Reese curse. She’s likable, so she would never have sex with a married man,'” Witherspoon said of the pressure to be a “likable” female character. “In the course of storytelling, it always cuts your character down to nothing.”

“You ladies are my role models @ElizabethBanks @EvaLongoria @KerryWashington!,” Witherspoon tweeted with a fire emoji at her fellow stars.

“So honored to stand beside these amazing women in our cover for @EntertainmentWeekly’s #BeyondBeautiful issue!” Longoria wrote on Instagram.

“Love being surrounded by these gorgeous goddesses on the new cover of @EW’s #BeyondBeautiful issue!” Banks tweeted. For more on our cover story, and exclusive news on Deadpool, HBO’s Vinyl, and more, pick up the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly, on newsstands Friday.