Jennifer Aniston has had a full year, with the Friends Reunion and the second season of The Morning Show. Now, she reflects on what’s to come, and how hard it hit her to film the reunion.
During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Jennifer Aniston opened up about the Friends Reunion, getting through the pandemic, her upcoming projects, and how she had envisioned her career.
But she wasn’t expecting the reunion to hit her as hard as it did. Going back to 2004, when the sitcom ended, so was her marriage to Brad Pitt. And that made her travel back to those moments.
She explained: “I think we were just so naive walking into it, thinking, “How fun is this going to be? They’re putting the sets back together, exactly as they were.” Then you get there and it’s like, “Oh right, I hadn’t thought about what was going on the last time I was actually here.” And it just took me by surprise because it was like, “Hi, past, remember me? Remember how that sucked? You thought everything was in front of you and life was going to be just gorgeous and then you went through maybe the hardest time in your life?” It was all very jarring and, of course, you’ve got cameras everywhere and I’m already a little emotionally accessible, I guess you could say, so I had to walk out at certain points. I don’t know how they cut around it.”
Jennifer does feel like her career took the path she wanted: “The career was one thing. I didn’t know what was coming, and that’s been nothing but blessed. It’s a different caliber of work but I love it, no matter what, even if it’s a terribly reviewed, dumb comedy, it doesn’t matter if it brings me joy.”
When it comes to her personal life, not so much: “That was what was jarring, that we all had an idea of what the future was going to be and we were going to go hunker down and focus on this or that and then it all just changed overnight, and that was it. But again, everything’s a blessing if you’re able to look at life’s ups and downs in that way. And if it all hadn’t happened, I would not be sitting here the woman that I am.”
