Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston have been friends for more than 25 years. They met when Reese guest starred as Rachel’s younger sister on Friends. In 2019, they reunited on screen for The Morning Show. TMS returned for its fourth season last week, so Reese and Jennifer have been making the rounds to promote it. One such interview they did was for LADbible’s “Do You Even Know Me?” series, in which they asked each other fun, personal questions. One of the questions that Reese asked Jen was, ”What is my real middle name?” Jen was completely stumped and had the funniest reaction when she learned Reese’s real, legal name.
After more than two decades of friendship, the 56-year-old finally learned that her The Morning Show costar’s real name is not Reese, but rather Laura. And her reaction? A hilariously baffled response of: “Who the hell’s Laura?”
“I’m Laura Jean,” Reese, 49, told the Friends alum during a joint interview with LADbible published Sept. 16. “That’s my real name.”
Still perplexed, Jennifer asked her longtime friend, “What made you go with Reese for your acting name?”
The Legally Blonde star then explained that she “didn’t change” her name, but that her name was “always Reese” since it’s her mom Mary Elizabeth “Betty” Witherspoon’s maiden name.
“It’s my middle name,” she added. “I’m Laura Jean Reese.”
Likewise, Reese didn’t know Jennifer’s middle name is Joanna.
“I was today years old,” she quipped, before asking her castmate if anyone calls her “J.J.”
Reese jokingly added, “Well, I do now!”
Jennifer’s reaction to learning that Reese’s real name is “Laura Jeanne” was hilarious. She was genuinely shocked! They’ve been friends for so long, and if I was in her place, I’d be taken aback, too. They’re in an industry in which people frequently use stage names, so I’m only sort of surprised that Reese’s birth name has never come up in conversation. People probably just readily accept a colleague’s preferred name, and that’s that. Also, I’ve always gotten the impression that Jennifer has a loyal group of friend. She posts a lot of pictures to social media and tends to work with the same group of actors.
That said, I really thought that Reese’s real name was common knowledge, even for those of us who weren’t online during her 2013 arrest (IYKYK). Wasn’t it a part of the promotion for Sweet Home Alabama? That was when I learned that she’d neutralized her Southern accent. It actually inspired me to work towards neutralizing my Long Island accent when I moved to North Carolina. My first job was at a doctor’s office, and the patients couldn’t understand me over the phone, so I literally tried to channel my inner Reese. It mostly worked, but 18 years later, there are still words that give me away.
Here’s the video of their exchange. It starts at 3:41.
Photos credit: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com/Avalon, Apple TV+ press
I did not know Reese was not her first name.
Nope, same here. And I remember her arrest!
Rather common in the South to call a child by their middle name. I find it weird…why not just make the child’s middle name their first name? But it’s definitely a thing, there.
So most of the men on my father’s side go by their middle names. Partly because half of them have ridiculous super old fashioned (like only acceptable Civil War era) first names and the others have a very generic John or James and a more distinctive middle name so they don’t all get called the same thing. My little brother reclaimed his James though which is fine because no one else uses it.
Haha real ones already knew!