AceShowbiz -

Reese Witherspoon may take director's chair soon. The "Wild" actress teased the next step in her career as she attended Variety's Power of Women gala on Friday, October 10. Without spilling much detail, the "Legally Blonde" star told E! News, "I've actually been thinking about it. I'm actually working on a project right now."

Witherspoon recently served as a producer for Ben Affleck's "Gone Girl". She also produced and starred in "Wild". Based on Cheryl Strayed's memoir "Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail", the movie tells the story of a woman who starts a solo long-distance hiking following some tragedies in her life.

In other news, Witherspoon also talked about Malala Yousafzai who recently became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize recipient at the same event. Witherspoon, who works with Malala Fund, shared a story of her daughter who did not want to go to school as a child. "I remember one day when my daughter Ava was really little, she's 15 now, but she was 7 or 8, she said, 'I don't wanna go to school,' " the actress told the audience.

"I took the opportunity to explain to her that there are a lot of girls all over the world who don't get the opportunity to go to school," she shared. "She was shocked and she asked me why. I told her that in certain places, people control women by not teaching them to read and write. If you can't read, you can't vote. If you can't write, you can't create new laws, and my daughter found that astounding. And from that point on Ava became determined to help others understand the plight of women around the world."

"When I was 14, I was worried about learning my lines and impressing casting directors. When Malala Yousafzai was 14, she was speaking out against an oppressive regime and fighting for the rights for girls to be educated around the world," Witherspoon continued, adding that the 17-year-old Yousafzai had a dinner with her family over the summer. "They told her today in chemistry class that she won a Nobel Peace Prize and she said, 'Oh that's wonderful. Okay I need to finish my classwork.' Amazing."