Reese Witherspoon has recalled how she "cried and cried and cried" when she hit breaking point with her hectic work schedule.

The 50-year-old actress was trying to juggle building up her media company Hello Sunshine alongside her commitments to three different TV shows, and it eventually all got too much for her.

Speaking on the debut episode of Harvard Business School's The Founder Mindset, she said: "In 2018, I was making three television shows at once and I don't know if people understand this, but each television show takes six months to make.

"So they were stacked on top of each other.

"So in the morning, I'd go be dressed as Bradley Jackson [for The Morning Show], change my clothes, run to another soundstage, be Madeline Martha Mackenzie in Big Little Lies and then go do a night shoot with Kerry Washington on Little Fires Everywhere.

"I wanted to lay down sideways and melt into the earth. I just cried and cried and cried.

Host Professor Reza Satchu noted the mental toll Reese's schedule must have taken, and she added: "And I had done it to myself."

But ultimately Reese didn't regret her career decisions.

She added: "But it all worked out. And you can do really, really, really hard things."

The Cruel Intentions star wanted to spotlight female stories with Hello Sunshine, which she explained was inspired by her experiences around 2011, when "the scripts and parts for women were abysmal" and "really demeaning."

At one point she received a script for a film which saw two women fighting for the attention of a male lead and was filled with "boob jokes" and "scatalogical humour."

With several big-name actresses seeking a part in the movie, Reese remembered thinking: "That's what we're fighting for?"

After complaining about the like of female-driven stories in Hollywood, the Legally Blonde star eventually realised she had been "admiring a problem" in Hollywood without doing anything to address the issue, prompting her to step into the production sphere.

At the time, Reese was driven by wanting to be a role model for her and first husband Ryan Phillippe's daughter Ava, now 26.

Asked what was at stake if Hello Sunshine was unsuccessful, she said: "Can I be really honest? It was my daughter.

"I saw a world where my daughter was watching television shows that really made women look terrible... overly sexualised or desperate for a man's attention.

"Competition shows that really value how you look instead of the content of your character.

"And I realised if I felt like that as a mom of a 13-year-old I'm sure lots of people feel this way.

"So if I wasn't creating aspirational content, who was going to do it? And, like, why not me? I had the support and I had the good will."

Reese is also mom to sons Deacon, 22, with Ryan, and Tennessee, 13, with second ex-husband Jim Toth.