Before Jennifer Aniston’s dramatic breakout role in Cake last year, most audiences knew her best for her comedic work on Friends and in a run of lighthearted films like Picture Perfect, Along Came Polly, He’s Just Not That into You, and Horrible Bosses. Looking back on her résumé, the newly anointed dramatic actress isn’t particularly proud of all the projects she’s made—but what actress, even Meryl Streep, is? And in a new interview, Aniston discusses her career regrets.
“There was a time when I worked and worked and worked. I loved it,”
Aniston tells Harper’s Bazaar. The actress doesn’t regret how little down
time she had, but reveals that she wasn’t able to say no when it mattered.
“I’m a bit of a people pleaser,” she explains. “I’ve got to stop. Some of
the movies I’ve made, I bow my head in slight shame over.”
To save you the trip to IMDB, we did a little bit of Aniston
résumé snooping and noticed that the actress did appear in seven films in
three years in the late 90s, including Picture Perfect and lesser known
titles like Dream for an Insomniac. But it’s a bit hard to gauge to which
period of her career she is referring, since she has made at least one film
a year since 2001 (save for 2007), including the critical bombs The Bounty
Hunter, Love Happens, and her Adam Sandler collaboration Just Go with
It.
But the actress, who appears next in the ensemble comedy
Mother’s Day, seems to be harnessing the critical momentum she earned for
Cake to choose future films.
“I feel a sense of freedom that I
hadn’t necessarily felt before,” Aniston says. “Also, you have to start
taking chances in an industry that’s very insecure about taking chances on
people. People forget who actors are. They say, ‘You’re too known to play
that part. You can’t disappear.’ And we’re like, ‘Give us a chance. We’ll
disappear.’”
The Friends alum does still enjoy some good comedy, though,
even if it isn’t necessarily politically correct—a trend the actress doesn’t
particularly love.
“I think everyone’s so freakin’ politically
correct lately. It’s becoming a real drag. I like making jokes,” she says.
“I’m lucky because Justin is the funniest person I’ve met, and we make each
other laugh. Laughter is one of the great keys to staying youthful.”
And while on the subject of Aniston’s new husband, Justin
Theroux, the actress reveals that marriage is going just fine this time
around—so much so that she’d rather stay in most nights.”
“I
really have to love something to be leaving my home, my dogs, my husband.
The older you get, the more you realize that,” she says. “Married life is so
normal and fun and not much different. We felt married for so long.”
