San Francisco Chronicle, November 2005
By Jeanne Cooper

If this interview were an episode of "Friends," it might be called "The One With Clive Owen."

After all, you can't avoid an element of farce when talking to two actors in different hotel rooms in New York -- at the same time -- while you're several time zones away. But Jennifer Aniston and the aforementioned Owen, who co-star in the psychological thriller "Derailed," opening Friday, took their long-distance publicity duties seriously enough to be almost derailed by the suggestion that I might be obligated to refer to them as "Clivifer" or "Jennifive."

Aniston: "What?! Why would you do that?"

Owen: "Uh ..." (It sounds a lot better in a brooding British accent.)

That's as close as we got to talking about Brangelina, or Vinnifer (Vaughniston? Anistaughn? Jince?), as US magazine will no doubt be dubbing the now-public liaison between forever-"Friends"-star Aniston, 36, and Vince Vaughn, 35. (They apparently hooked up recently while filming "The Break Up" -- oh, the irony!)

But astute Aniston watchers are free to read deeply personal -- and possibly spurious -- references into her lines below. (Owen fans may wish to imagine him brooding handsomely, a la "Gosford Park" or "Closer," in the room next door. I didn't ask either if they were wearing clothes, so feel free to imagine the opposite, too.)

Both "The Break Up," a romantic comedy, and the dark "Derailed" were filmed in Chicago, which, thanks to the latter's noir twists, seems like a place where you need to pack heat if you're planning to talk to strangers. Aniston, however, is happy to defend the Windy City.

"Chicago is one of the greatest cities I've ever been to. I've absolutely fallen in love with it," she says, with sudden animation. "People are kind and interesting and interested in other things -- they leave you alone -- and there are great museums and restaurants."

"Chicago is very cinematic," interjects Owen, not quite as bubbly. He is 41 and has played Romeo on the British stage, not in the tabloids. "It's not sunny and bright, but it's very beautiful to look at on film. It's a whole other character."

Chicago thus defended, Owen also puts in a good word for his character in "Derailed": Charles, an advertising executive with an ailing diabetic daughter, ends up jeopardizing her medical funds through a disastrous series of missteps involving Aniston's stranger-on-a-train Lucinda.

I mean, what kind of person loses his daughter's lifesaving drug money?

"When you put it that way, without context" -- meaning without giving away the plot -- "it sounds extreme, ridiculous," says Owen, himself the father of two girls, ages 7 and 9. "But he's a flawed, fallible human being in a horrific nightmare who doesn't always make the right decision."

Speaking of flawed human beings, mysterious Lucinda may be the least good girl Aniston has played yet (although, thankfully, she gets to dress more like Rachel in her fashion executive job on "Friends" than in her dowdied-down cashier role in "The Good Girl").

"There's something very fascinating to me that she would choose this kind of life," Aniston puts in, and it must be said that she comes off as kind of Rachel-y in a restrained way. "When we meet her, she's at the point where she's not particularly happy in this kind of life, and she's kind of affected by what happens to Charles."

Lucinda's choices in men also smack of bad decisions, for which Aniston has a backstory ready.

"That comes from not having had the greatest male role models in your life. You can't pick who you fall in love with, and she and (her boyfriend) were probably deeply in love. Then the relationship shape-shifts, and if you don't have enough strength or confidence to change it or leave, you can get stuck in it."

(Words to remember, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.)

But while Lucinda and Charles may grapple with guilty feelings, Aniston confesses to being relatively unburdened. "I don't have a lot of guilt," she says. "It's better to put it on the table and deal with whatever it is than carry it around."

Owen is a bit less blithe. "I don't think I feel guilty that often, really, except for the time I spend away from the little ones, having to leave them for chunks of time," he says. (Given that he has five movies announced or in some form of production for next year, he should be in fine brooding form.)

It's tempting in my remaining minutes (I was allotted 20) to ask Owen, who had a steamy gay role in 1997's "Bent," if he's looking forward to playing some "ruff" trade -- in this case, Sir Walter Raleigh in 2006's "Elizabeth: The Golden Age." But I would be remiss if I didn't ask Aniston about her role in a more modern costume drama, 1999's "Office Space," much beloved by cubicle dwellers everywhere.

Who else but Aniston could have displayed such flair in mocking a Bennigan's-style waiter uniform that required "pieces of flair"? And does she realize that in Silicon Valley, "Office Space" is quoted with perhaps even greater frequency than "Caddyshack"?

"That's great, but I was just a blip in that," Aniston says, with undue self-effacement and a touch of puzzlement.

And after allowing that she's not wearing any pieces of flair today, this blip of an interview is over and the "Derailed" publicity train gets back on track.