Reese Witherspoon is now a powerful name in film and TV production. There’s Big Little Lies (in which she also stars), Little Fires Everywhere (once again, she stars in it) and Tiny Beautiful Things, to name a few. Her latest as executive producer is The Last Thing He Told Me, which is an adaptation of a mystery-thriller novel by Laura Dave, and is playing on Apple TV+.

On screen, you see Jennifer Garner playing the role of a woodturner named Hannah Michaels, who thinks she leads a happy life with Owen (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) but somehow can’t get through to her stepdaughter Bailey (Angourie Rice), at least, not until the software engineer of a husband mysteriously disappears, leaving her a simple note: “Protect her.” The houseboat in Sausalito has been rocked.

There onwards, it becomes a mother-daughter story told in the form of a crime thriller. A wife and her stepdaughter are forced to become amateur private eyes to solve a corporate scandal. Garner turns in a strong, effortless performance, thanks to Dave adapting her own book and having Josh Singer to create the show with her.

Here’s what the 51-year-old actress told us about the Apple TV+ series over a video call.

In the series, Jennifer is joined by Angourie Rice, who plays the stepdaughter, Bailey

How would you describe the relationship between Hannah and her stepdaughter, Bailey? There are lots of differences but there are also common points.

Hannah and Bailey start out at odds with each other. Hannah grew up without a mother, does not know how to be a mother. Bailey grew up without a mother and does not know how to have a mother. Hannah gets on Bailey’s nerves and Hannah is chasing Bailey, trying to force this relationship to happen. Their lives blow up; they are forced to work together, whether they like it or not, for their own safety. In this process, the story becomes a love story between two women, which is such an unusual and beautiful way to approach a story. And what I love about Hannah is that she’s always the grown-up in the room; she’s always willing to sit down and have a hard conversation. She always follows her instincts and, that to me, is a lot of what parenting is. She turns out to be quite a great mom.

Based on your experiences, how important is it to protect your children as opposed to letting them experience the world on their terms?

I think sometimes letting your children experience the world is protecting them because they have to learn. But Hannah, in this case, is asked to protect her without any idea of what her husband is telling her. Little does she even know that this is going to mean sacrificing the most important relationship in her life to carry out his ask of her and she ends up protecting Bailey physically and emotionally; she protects the integrity of who Bailey is. It’s really a beautiful, vast world that happens because of those two words (‘Protect her’).

What kind of responsibility the tag ‘executive producer’ brings (she also takes on this role on the show)?

I’ve been working 30 years and one just naturally takes on more roles. Josh Singer, our showrunner, and Laura Dave, the author of the book, were so incredibly inviting to me and collaborative, that we actually spent months in prep together, reading the script in their backyard under a tree, going through it again and again. And they would revise based on conversations that we had sometimes… hard conversations, and then doing it again and again and again. And that really helped me find Hannah; it helped all of us find our rhythm.

In every role you play, you learn new skills. What did you learn from being a woodturner?

I’ve always loved trees. I love wood. My house is all wood. It’s filled with pictures of trees. I was not surprised… coming from a small town that’s full of trees… that I would love woodturning, but I had no idea how much I would love it. I turned wood with a teacher named Aaron Hauser for months and months. It started with a couple of hours on the weekend and then I got so invested in the project that I’d be with him for five hours on Saturday and four or five hours on Sunday to finish a bowl. I just I absolutely loved the process. It showed me Hannah’s stillness, because you have to stand still, you have to “listen” to the piece of wood in front of you as you are working with a lathe.

Were liberties taken when the book was translated into a screenplay?

Yes, definitely. It’s impossible to exactly adhere to a book when you’re adapting it. In this case, Josh and Laura wanted to give fans of the book something extra something that they wouldn’t be expecting. So there are some surprises in there that tell you more about the story. They’re just a little bit deeper for real fans of the book.

Hannah’s very strong and she is smart and she has a soft side. How did you go about moulding the character?

So much of that is taken care of in the writing. But I do think that Hannah’s also reserved, which comes from the wound of not having her mother and of being rejected by her parents when she was little and knowing that and her strength comes from having a grandfather who loved her and who never let her forget that she is whole just as she is. I think the rest of it kind of falls into place. I feel like Hannah can handle a fight. If she needed to have one, I wouldn’t have minded her having to throw a punch or two.

There’s this line about there are shadows that we don’t always see. To what extent are you worried or perhaps even afraid of the shadows in this world?

I don’t walk through the world in fear otherwise, it’s just paralysing. I do walk through the world thinking about what can I personally affect and make better, whether that’s by raising good, empathetic kids who are proactive or funny. It’s much more interesting to me to try to find ways to be part of a solution than to just focus on all the things that are going wrong, or that can go wrong.

What were the challenges of shooting the show, making the adaptation work?

One of the challenges was the switching back and forth in time; the flashbacks are so integral to the story you need to know who Owen is. He was perfection. But you need to know him; you need to see the way that they loved each other, so that Hannah would react the way that she does to everything in the world, conspiring to tell her that her husband is not as wonderful as she thinks he is. Going back and forth is easier in the book to keep the narrative going forward. And I think Josh and Laura did an amazing job of finding the balance between flashbacks and present day to make it all a single piece.

Here’s one show in which the stepmother is not vilified; it’s just the opposite…..

Yes, the wicked stepmother! I was interested in the story because of Laura’s writing and because it just kept surprising me and it just kept me on my toes. And then at the centre of it was the most human story you could possibly imagine about these women. Yes, I did find it delicious the take on the stepmother here in this story.

The Last Thing He Told Me is streaming on Apple TV+