It seems that the audience knows everything about famous actors who have been on the screens for a long time. A similar story happened with actress Jennifer Aniston. She played Rachel Green on Friends for a decade. Then, fans followed her every move. Despite this, the feeling of familiarity is just an illusion. Who is Jennifer Aniston? What secrets and surprising facts does her life story hold? We will talk about this in the article. In addition, find out how acting is taught in Los Angeles. Read more on los-angeles.pro.
Early life
Jennifer Aniston was born on February 11, 1969 in Los Angeles. Aniston’s parents divorced when she was nine. She grew up with her mother while her father worked as an actor, most notably on the soap opera Days of Our Lives. After high school, the young Aniston began her acting career on various New York stages and spent several years performing in off-Broadway productions. In 1989, she began appearing on television and was soon cast in two shows that were not very successful. Aniston starred in several other television shows before making her big screen debut in the horror film Leprechaun, which also went unnoticed.
Acting career
Jennifer Aniston’s path to fame with her role on Friends wasn’t smooth. It was more like a roller coaster ride at an amusement park that hadn’t been fully tested for safety. Before she became the iconic Rachel Green, Aniston faced a lot of obstacles in her acting career. Jennifer, like many aspiring actors in Hollywood, passed many auditions and received rejections. She appeared in a number of television shows that did not become popular. Before the series Friends, Aniston was often portrayed as a teenage girl. This was not the path that led to success. At that time, Aniston had many personal problems. She spoke openly about her difficult relationship with her mother, which added negative emotional baggage to her during that period of her life. When she finally landed the role of Rachel Green, it wasn’t just a career launch, it was like winning the emotional and professional lottery.
Aniston got her big break when she was cast as the funny waitress Rachel Green in Friends. The series, which centers on six friends in New York, premiered in 1994 and soon became one of the most popular shows on television. Her character Rachel’s relationship with Ross Geller (played by David Schwimmer) became one of the show’s most popular storylines. For the role of Rachel, the actress received an Emmy Award (2002) and a Golden Globe Award (2003). Along with fellow cast members Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer, she became one of the highest-paid actresses on television, earning $1 million per episode by the time the show ended in 2004. In 1995, Jen’s signature layered haircut became a national trend. Seeing her on TV, the women hurried to get their hair cut in a similar style.
The popularity of the series Friends continued to grow in the following years. This led to numerous offers to star in feature films. During filming in Friends, Aniston continued to appear in various feature films.
In 2002, she received critical acclaim for her performance in the drama The Good Girl, in which she played a saleswoman who has an affair with a boyfriend. She starred alongside Jim Carrey in the blockbuster comedy Bruce Almighty (2003) and appeared in the thriller Derailed (2005).
Life after the series Friends
Her next films were The Break-Up (2006), a drama about the break-up of a two-year relationship, Marley & Me (2008), which focuses on a couple and their labrador and the comedy Horrible Bosses (2011) and Horrible Bosses 2 (2014). Aniston also starred in the romantic comedies He’s Just Not That Into You (2009), The Bounty Hunter (2010), The Switch (2010), Just Go with It (2011) and Wanderlust (2012). In We’re the Millers (2013), she played the role of an exotic dancer who portrays the mother of a family in a scheme to smuggle marijuana from Mexico to the United States.
Aniston returned to a light comedy film with a farce directed by Peter Bogdanovich, She’s Funny That Way (2014). Aniston has also appeared in series and played the main role in The Morning Show in 2019, which was broadcast on Apple TV+, with the participation of Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell.
In addition, Aniston directed one of five segments of the cable television film Five (2011), which focused on women with breast cancer. She was one of 100 artists and other public figures who produced the documentary Unity (2015). It explores human existence and interconnectedness.
Private life
At the beginning of the new millennium, no one had as much attention to personal life as Jennifer Aniston. Her marriage to Brad Pitt was a dream for many. However, the couple’s separation generated even more headlines than their relationship. Then, Pitt started to date Angelina Jolie. There was a cruel trend with Team Aniston and Team Jolie t-shirts. Everyone looked at Aniston as a victim, a sad, lonely woman who did not find her happiness.
Between 1990 and 1995, Aniston dated actor Daniel MacDonald, who died of brain cancer in February 2007. In 1995, Aniston briefly dated Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz.
Aniston and Brad Pitt’s managers introduced the couple in 1994. It wasn’t until 1998 that they went on their first date. The following year, they made their debut on the red carpet at the 51st Emmy Awards. The couple announced their engagement in November at a Sting concert. On July 29, 2000, Aniston and Pitt were married in front of 200 guests at a private estate in Malibu near the Pacific Ocean. In 2004, rumors began to appear about Pitt and his colleague Angelina Jolie, who later shared that they became close friends on the set. In January 2005, Aniston and Pitt announced that they were separating after almost five years of marriage. At the time, the couple said: ‘This decision is the result of long consideration. We happily remain loyal and caring friends with great love and admiration for each other. We ask in advance for your kindness and sensitivity in the coming months’.
Aniston married Justin Theroux in 2015 but divorced him two years later. Then hundreds of headlines appeared again about the actress’ fertility and the couple’s lack of children. This led to the actress writing an open letter to the Huffington Post in 2016 about the tabloid narrative that had dogged her for decades. ‘We are complete with or without a husband, with or without a child. We get to decide for ourselves what is beautiful when it comes to our bodies. That decision is ours and ours alone’.
In an interview, she repeated how she was tired of focusing on her personal life:
‘My marital status has been shamed; my divorce status was shamed; my lack of a mate had been shamed; my nipples have been shamed. I just thought: I have worked too hard in this life and this career to be whittled down to a sad, childless human ’.
Despite being a role model for millions of women around the world, the actress still has to live up to her single status.