We’re guessing Jennifer Aniston wanted a break from Friends more than Rachel did Ross…
We spoke about Jennifer Aniston on this episode of It’s Been A Big Day For…
Skyrocketing in popularity and becoming a household name has proved to be a double-edged sword for Jennifer Aniston who has recently opened up about not being able to shake her Rachel Green image from Friends, early on in her career.
During a roundtable with the Hollywood Reporter, a question was asked, “Who here has struggled with wanting to be seen in ways that the industry didn’t want to see them?” and Jennifer Aniston replied with “Oh my God, yes.”
Jennifer Aniston elaborated, “I mean, I could not get Rachel Green off of my back for the life of me. I could not escape ‘Rachel from Friends,’ and it’s on all the time and you’re like, ‘Stop playing that f**king show!’”
Friends has really stood the test of time, more than most sitcoms. While there’s the occasional subplot which hasn’t aged well in this woke climate, Friends was a groundbreaking sitcom which garnered fans in the ‘90s and ‘00s, in addition to the ‘10s and now the ‘20s. As a result, we can totally understand how Jennifer Aniston was always being compared to her previous work when she took on new roles. And even more so, we can’t blame her for feeling this way.
Jennifer Aniston then went on to open up about how her role as Justine Last in the 2002 film The Good Girl was the first time she was able to break free from the sitcom-mould.
She said: “The Good Girl was the first time I got to really shed whatever the Rachel character was, and to be able to disappear into someone who wasn’t that was such a relief to me. But I remember the panic that set over me, thinking, ‘Oh God, I don’t know if I can do this. Maybe they’re right. Maybe everybody else is seeing something I’m not seeing, which is you are only that girl in the New York apartment with the purple walls.’ So, I was almost doing it for myself just to see if I could do something other than that. And it was terrifying because you’re doing it in front of the world.”
Jennifer Aniston also made a point, during the roundtable, about only being put up for comedy roles, saying: “Once you play comedy, they don’t think you can do the drama; and if you’re only seen as a dramatic actor, they don’t think you can do comedy. They forget that we’re actors and we actually have it all in there. It’s just about finding it and accessing it and getting the material.”
Well, we’re guessing that all the stress was worth it and Jennifer Aniston is feeling content with her acting career now. Given the immense success of the new Apple TV series Morning Wars, in addition to We’re The Millers and Horrible Bosses, Jennifer Aniston has proven to audiences that she can take on drama roles in addition to serving up variety when it comes to comedy. What an icon.
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