NEW YORK -- "You know how some destructive relationships can keep you trapped ..." Jennifer Aniston is saying.

On an early Sunday morning in New York City, America's magazine cover girl catches herself mid-sentence, stops and smiles nervously.

She's not talking about her breakup with Brad; she's talking about her character's attraction to one of the men in her latest film.

Aniston seems to have an internal mute button that flashes when she says anything that could be misconstrued -- even something as innocent as a character assessment.

She stars in the new thriller "Derailed," opening Friday, and it's safe to say that Aniston's own life derailed a bit during this last year, when she became the ex-Mrs. Brad Pitt.

"I'm not a role model or the poster child for how to do anything," she cautions. Then she breaks her patented "don't talk" motto and confesses, "This was my first time at this particular picnic.

"It was all about family, great support, great friends and work. What I went through is nothing out of the ordinary. People walk through this stuff all the time."

Yes, people go through divorces all the time, but they're not marked with your ex running around the globe with Angelina Jolie and her two children. Most divorces aren't played out in global headlines, either. But just in case you were wondering, Aniston insists she has never read any of the rags.

"It's toxic," she says. "I don't pay attention to it."

What she has paid attention to was establishing a film career.

"I can say that it's good to have a creative outlet. I love having work."

It's ironic that Aniston's personal life hit the bricks at the same time her professional one heated up. After 10 years playing Rachel Green on "Friends," she's trying her hand at movie stardom. To that end, she just wrapped the curiously titled "The Break Up," with Vince Vaughn. Aniston calls the shot-in-Chicago film "fated."

"It's been cathartic and fantastic," she says.

How fantastic? More on that in a minute.

"Rumor Has It," directed by Rob Reiner and co-starring Mark Ruffalo and Kevin Costner, is due out in December. Aniston plays an obituary writer who believes she's the daughter of the couple who created the story for "The Graduate." Aniston will also star in 2006 in "Friends With Money," with Catherine Keener, Frances McDormand and Joan Cusack. She plays a maid who laments the fact that all her friends are married except for her.

The first test of her movie mettle comes with "Derailed," directed by Mikael Hafstom. Aniston got the script during a far different time in her life. She was hanging out in Italy with Pitt at George Clooney's Lake Como villa. English star Clive Owen was already attached to "Derailed," which revolves around a suburban Chicago ad man who strays from his mundane life when he meets a sexy woman on a train.

It's not the largest role in the movie, but size doesn't matter to Aniston.

"I actually prefer this. It's more interesting," she says. "And I would never take a part based on it being the lead."

The plot takes a quick, dark turn, and Aniston wasn't sure she could go to that place at the time. But Julia Roberts, who at the time was starring with Owen in "Closer," sang his praises and, as the stories go, helped push Aniston over the edge. But she still worried about it.

"There was a moment of, 'Oh gosh, I hope I can pull this off'," Aniston admits.

The result is the film might even debunk the American sweetheart image she created over her decade as our best Friend?

"Well, God, I hope so," Aniston replies. "Actually, that America's sweetheart label gets put on a lot of people. I don't even really pay that much attention to labels.

"I'm not trying to shake anything," she announces. "I'm just following my own instincts and grateful for the work that comes to me."

Coming to Chicago to film back-to-back films -- "Derailed" and "The Break Up" -- helped give her a new setting to contemplate the next chapter in her life, which, she has stated for the record, may well include a new relationship and definitely children at some point.

During her summer in Chicago, Aniston was cloaked by a bodyguard to deflect those with long lenses. And then there was the other guy she snuggled with at night. His name is Norman and he's a Welsh corgi-terrier mix.

And then there was Oprah.

"I just love her so much. She makes you feel like we're all figuring it out together," Aniston says of the Chicago talk-show host. "She has just been a very good friend to me."

She adds, "Honestly, I did love Chicago. I loved filming there. The people were so kind and respectful. They really left me alone."

Aniston says the strangest place she was recognized was in the Peninsula Hotel's steam room.

"What can you do?" she says with a shrug. "It's still a great steam room."

Speaking of steamy, if you believe the tabloid pictures, she returned a few weeks ago for a chapter that could be dubbed "The Make Out." Photographers snapped Aniston and "Break Up" co-star Vince Vaughn curled up and cozy on her balcony at that very same Peninsula Hotel. With her hair messed up and wearing no makeup, she certainly didn't look like Brad Pitt's tortured ex.

She insists she's not, as the tabloids have indicated, moving to Chicago.

"How do these things get started?" she says with a sigh.

She has called Vaughn a friend.

"I adore him," she said recently. "He's delicious and funny. He's got all the colors of the rainbow. But I don't want to be a rebound girl. I feel like it will happen when it happens."

Additional questions about her recent clinches in Chicago are greeted with a firm "No comment."

Aniston wants to wrap her mind around work and relaxing.

"I'm always looking for good work -- dramatic, comedic, whatever it is. These movies like 'Derailed' and 'The Break Up' came along at a perfect time. It was just sort of fate."

For now, Aniston is "enjoying the solitude."

As for the next whirlwind in her already breezy life, she shrugs and insists, "I don't know what's going to happen next."

She plans to take a little time off. Could falling love be on the agenda?

"I have so much love in my life," she says. "I'm very lucky."