Jennifer Aniston will be at Sundance this weekend to promote her indie film, The Yellow Birds. She plays the mother of a kid who enlists to fight in the Iraq War. I believe her part is supporting, but she’s the biggest name attached to the film and that means she’ll probably have to do the heavy lifting on promotion. Incidentally, The Yellow Birds was produced by the same people who did Cake, which came thisclose to getting Aniston an Oscar nomination several years ago. Ahead of her trip to Sundance, Aniston chatted to Variety about the film, the tabloids and whether she would ever return to TV. Some highlights:
How The Yellow Birds came to her: “It came to me from Mark Canton and Courtney Solomon, who I did “Cake” with. While we were shooting “Cake,” they were in the process of getting the rights to the book. I read the script and it was absolutely gut-wrenching. It’s not normally where I gravitate toward a film like this. I fell in love with the whole idea of it. When they asked me to play one of the mothers, I said: “Of course.”
Whether she met real mothers of soldiers: “I spoke to Alex, read the script, and worked with this amazing woman who is an acting coach, named Nancy Banks. Just listening to interviews … endless interviews. I came out of this experience riddled with gratitude that we all need to have. When we’re not on the frontlines, we’re pretty removed by watching the news. And the extraordinary sacrifices these kids make. By the way, Alden [Ehrenreich] and Tye [Sheridan], the two actors who play the soldiers, are just dazzling. Alden is just like watching a young Leonardo DiCaprio.”
Whether she would go back to TV: “Yes, I would. I’ve thought about it a lot. That’s where the work is. That’s where the quality is. At this point in my career, I want to be part of wonderful stories, exciting characters, and also just having a good time. When you’re in your 20s, going away from home was an adventure — meeting new people, seeing other parts of the country or world was so exciting. Now it’s really about wanting to stay closer to home and just enjoying your time. It goes really fast. The experience needs to be a good experience. I have no time for the yelling, angry directors, or bad behavior anymore.
Her HuffPo essay about the tabloids: “I got fed up. I was in a really raw, vulnerable place. I had just lost my mom, and I did it for myself originally as a therapeutic way to deal with the bullsh-t. I’ve always been advised not to respond, not to speak up, it’ll go away. I was rolling into the 15th year of these preposterous rumors about my fertility status, marital status, singlehood status. I was tired of being shamed for whether I have this or that. I’m perfectly happy where I am, and that needs to be honored and respected. I’ve worked hard for a lot of years to be reduced down to: “Is she or isn’t she?” I just felt, write it down, get it all out. That’s why the original draft, before I put it in the hands of my trusted editor, was 12 pages of me barking my head off at people. And then my partner [Justin Theroux] said, “You should really give this to someone.” I had this moment of — it’s time, and who cares how it’s received. I had no idea it would get the response that it did; I was thrilled with that. But sadly, people still buy into it. They are consumers of this trash and they eat it up.
The anti-Trump march being held at Sundance, hosted by Chelsea Handler. “Well, I’m all for that. Hell yeah. What everyone is really seeing right now is there’s a lot of fear out there like I’ve never seen in my life. I support all the women and men who are going to be marching. We have the unalienable right to do that. I hope it penetrates and everyone gets heard.
I’ve seen some outlets use the headline “Jennifer Aniston will return to TV!” but it’s pretty clear that she’s just saying she’s open to returning to TV, not that she’s got some TV project lined up. Aniston is still stuck in the ‘90s paradigm, where it’s always preferable to be in movies and TV is never going to be as good. That being said, she seems to be warming up to the idea that television is where it’s at for so many great actors, writers and directors. My guess is that she would return to TV, but only if it was dripping in prestige, like something for HBO.
She’s also asked about distribution for the film and she sort of forgot that Netflix and Amazon are going proper film distribution now, which… I relate to, because I forget that sometimes. She admits that she’s a “sucker for wanting to go to movie theaters” but that she too binge-watches TV shows, and she’s currently watching The Crown.
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet and WENN.
I rewatched all of Friends recently – my husband hadn’t watched it before. There were times where she was so good in that – but most of the time I really couldn’t stand the Rachel character. Now and then she’d get such a good line in, but I think a lot of what I didn’t like was just who the character was written to be. I was always a Chandler fan.
I don’t mind JA. I don’t think she’s some sort of genius actress – but she does perfectly fine with the projects she takes. I wouldn’t mind watching her in a series if she wasn’t just playing Rachel again.
Rachel was always my least fave but rewatching the series she was truly awful. I preferred Ross with his non Rachel love interests.
Monica/Phoebe’s friendship was more preferable than Monica/Rachel.
She has said this before. But then most of what she says is rehashing what she has already said.
Maybe they should quit asking her the same questions then.
But doesn’t she have control over questions asked and what is printed? I thought I read that somewhere.
This only comes up when the subject is a disliked celebrity. Yes, many celebrities will have a list of No Questions but they also have to make sure that its a reasonable list and that its sufficiently brief. I imagine Jens No List is packed to the brim with Brangelina related questions and anything even remotely connected like abuse or adoption or coping with a high profile divorce et cetera.
As for repetition, this is also true for all celebrities. They ALL pick talking points and run them through over the years. Everyone from Matt to Ben to Brad to She who I shall not name; everybody. The thing is the vast majority of readers dont fixate on a celebrity, so its always new to the majority and only very vaguely familiar to most of the rest . Case in point, I dont even know what aspect of this interview you feel is a repeat. The only thing here I have heard about before is her HuffPo article and even the bhs details are new to me.
@GOonGirl, Interview subjects don’t control the editorial process. While they may understandably decline to answer certain questions, they don’t decide what is published or not, and if they’re asked a fairly mundane question like Jen was asked, why wouldn’t they answer it? I’m a journalist. I no longer cover entertainment, but I have interviewed some celebrities from time to time, granted none as big as Aniston. Any ethical news outlet would not allow a celebrity to control what goes into print. If she was speaking to a tabloid, where journalistic ethics mean little, that would be different. But Variety is a traditional news publication, simply with an entertainment focus.
Yes @goongirl
She does have control over questions and final product. This is a woman who does print adverts designed as ‘interviews’ for product. Vogue and wintour actually put her on blast for claiming she was in the dark about her ‘Angelina was Uncool’ cover. Said she knew exactly what she was doing, that she had final approval and she was not being up front, to put it politely. That’s part of the reason they haven’t had her on their mag or in it – since 2009. Dishonest. Again putting it politely.
If her outrage wasn’t so disingenuous you’d have to almost laugh at her being fake-ticked at Vogue when she did the exact same thing (only worse!) in GQ magazine not even a few weeks or a month later – interview was her being bitter about Angelina. Just Angelina.
It was planned.
This woman has always wanted her cake. Wants to be treated like a victim and have you hate who she points fingers at, but wants to be seen as Nicole kidman all ‘strong and moving on-ish’ – which is hard to do when your PR schemes your career around your victimhood and ex.
Just like the pregnancy stuff. She cries and cries and tells mags and interviewers she literally is having kids, wants it bad and wants to be married – said she’s a better person as a couple. Then cries some more on Oprah. Then when they focus on her personal life in the wake of all that scorned woman hype, and her ex finally becoming a Dad – she wants to call foul??
She would play bump watch constantly and wants to call foul?
She’s an example of someone with mediocre looks and mediocre talent faking their way to the top of the tv and $ food chain with a great longtime power PR guy and the extremely roomy coat tails of her ex.
Lastly, what would surprise me is her saying anything controversial or challenging about politics and Trump. We know she’s his polar opposite politically and probably has strong views about his candidacy, but you’ll never hear an utterance. Sad thing is she’s one of those people that middle America or the mini vans whom older white women (who voted for Trump) love – it would actually mean something if she actually was critical about Trump or spoke up about him even in the slightest (not just vaguely rooting on the women’s March as she does in this piece) but she never has.
I’m sure it’s fear and anxiety re the tabloid ninnies turning on her, which as a veteran celeb with money to burn she shouldn’t be.
But she’ll never do anything that might make her unpopular or more apt- that might make people pro-actively hate on her like they’ve done on others. This is a woman who said she was destroyed when Kim Stewart called her homely, so if Trump did it she’d go into hiding.
…ad infinitum.
meh, all actors say the same things over and over, mostly because they’re always asked the same questions.
I thought some of the stuff she said was new, like the part about not working with angry, yelling directors and bad behaviour. I thought that was interesting and gave some insight into what actresses might have to put up with. I don’t know if it’s because she’s older, but she seemed more direct in this interview than I’m used to seeing from actresses. Sometimes you see actresses alluding to stuff but here she outright said it’s bad behaviour, which I wouldn’t have expected. I thought she was direct about the Trump stuff too, rather than hedging like some of the male celebrities have been doing.
Yup. She’s clearly well past the stage of having to put up with diva behaviour from anyone on the set. She could probably never work another day in her life if she wanted to, so why subject yourself to ego driven hissy fits if you don’t have to?
I love her and I wish her the best!
Me too!
Ditto.
She should do tv again. The movies she does are just not good. She needs to change her look more often to be more versatile rather than just wearing wigs & hair pieces. She needs to get rid of the jen aniston/racheal green look & vibe & start fresh with a new audience. Given a good script she could be good in a netflix or hbo series.
I still love that dress.
Her “young Leonardo DiCaprio” comment made me feel old.
I bet it will make DiCaprior feel old too.
Now that the Brange is over, what will she do for tabloid coverage? The “Triangle” is what kept her in the public eye for so long. Maybe now it’s done she’s realized she needs to take stock of her real talents (acting) and work with those.
She’s taking smaller roles in quality projects, like Cake. She’s a decent actress, with the right material she can really shine. It will be interesting to see what she does going forward over the next few years.
Her threads don’t have near the comments they used to. Interesting how that all worked out. Just so interesting.
Jennifer is pushing 50 so as a woman movie roles are drying up. More importantly she wasn’t getting good roles anyway. If she is serious about tv I doubt she’d get the serious, interesting roles. She’s not that good an actress.