Reese Witherspoon is busy promoting her new film, The Good Lie, in which she plays an employment agency counsellor trying to help three Sudanese refugees start a new life in the US.

In a press conference ahead of the film's release, Witherspoon quoted some remarks made by Purpose Driven Life author Rick Warren.

"I was talking to Rick Warren yesterday, he said sometimes we assume that if people are poor they're not intelligent or they don't have anything to offer to society," she was quoted as saying by The Christian Post.

"These are people who were top of their field, and they're doctors, they're educators, they're community leaders, and essentially they're displaced."

Witherspoon revealed to the WENN news agency that after wrapping up filming for The Good Lie she took her daughter Ava to the Kakuma Camp in Kenya to give her an insight into the reality for refugees on the African continent.

"Even though I didn't shoot any scenes there I wasn't ready to go home to my life," she said.

"I really wanted to see what the experience was like, so I took my teenage daughter. She's a wonderful, socially-conscious girl."

During the visit, Reese says they saw women giving birth on metal tables and little boys sleeping with several brothers and sisters on concrete slabs, all with very little food or healthcare.

"What was really amazing was the joy of these people to rise above and their determination to have a better life for their children. Their spirit was just incredible. They'd greet you with smiles and laughter and hugs."

Witherspoon is a Christian and has been frequently spotted attending church with her husband Jim Toth and two children, Ava and Deacon.

She previously said she hoped attending church would give her kids a "real sense of community".

"[Church] takes you out of your personal experience and universalises it. You understand that whatever you're dealing with, someone in that room has either dealt with that same thing or will in the future. We are all struggling to figure out what life is about, we are all just looking for answers."

Watch the trailer for The Good Lie below: