By Mark Binelli
Photography By Herb Ritts
Rolling Stone
September 27, 2001
Jennifer Aniston pulls into the Tower on Sunset
in her silver Jag. She is running late. To make amends,
she waves, comic-frantically, as she parks. That�s the Tower
Records on Sunset Boulevard. As in, ground zero for West
Hollywood: next-door to Spago�s, and just down the street
from the Viper Room, the Whiskey and Larry Flynt�s Hustler
store.
Aniston parks beneath a Neil Diamond billboard.
(Later, she will confide that her earliest musical memories
involve singing along to her mom�s Neil Diamonds and Barry
Manilow records.) The poster facing the Neil Diamond billboard
reads like a rebuke: SNOOP DOGG PRESENTS: BAD AZZ. Aniston
is wearing a black ribbed tank top, gray shorts, sandals
and brown-tinted sunglasses. She is tan and slender. Her
jeans jacket is tied around her waist.
Aniston is running late because it�s her second
day back at work on Friends after summer hiatus. It�s the
eighth and final season for the NBC sitcom that put Aniston
on the star map. �We�re shooting a wedding banquet, and
banquet scenes are always a debacle,� she says over her
shoulder as we enter the store. (On the door: a splashy
poster of Aniston�s husband and Julia Roberts in The Mexican.)
Inside, Aniston pulls a crumpled piece of
paper from her purse. �I have a list of shit I need to buy,�
she says. It is a hand-written list, scrawled erratically
on the back of a fax page. For a famous person, Aniston
seems wholly unconcerned by the fact that she is in public,
in a relatively small store with narrow aisles, sans big
floppy hat, false mustache or any other form of disguise.
�Brad said get this band Ours,� Aniston says.
�Do you know them? I guess they�re one of those junior-Radiohead
bands. I haven�t heard them. I imagine there must be a lot
of bands like that now, because everyone wants to be Radiohead.�
Shrug. �I�d like to be Radiohead. It�s not a bad thing.�
Aniston confesses that music plays a major
role in her life with Brad Pitt: �We do have similar tastes-very
eclectic in that we�ll listen to pretty much anything. We
also go through phases together, like that band Bran Van
3000, their first album. When we started dating we were
listening to a lot of Radiohead. They just sounded so good
at that point in our relationship.�
We walk down a Rock/Pop/Soul aisle. �All right,
Aniston focus,� she says. We stop by the H�s. �Which Hendrix
did he want?� she mutters to herself. A big guy with tats
and a rockabilly pompadour walk by. Aniston has shifted
her sunglasses to her head. �I haven�t been in here in,
like, ten years,� she adds. �The last two times I came,
people totally freaked out right next to me.�
Aniston is not alluding to freakouts of the
fan variety. A decade ago, she was not famous-so not famous,
it would be two more years before she uttered the words,
�I got Leprechaun-fuckin� A!�-after being cast in the mercifully
forgotten 1993 horror film that marked her screen debut.
No, Aniston is referring to freakouts of the
street-lunatic variety. �I attract that,� she says. �Once
in New Yorl, I must have been in Eleventh grade, and there
was this homeless guy on the streets who looked just like
Santa. Bears. Huge guy. Big gut.� Aniston puffs her cheeks
and mimes a big gut with her hands. �So everyone�s walking
by him, finding him all cute and charming. Then I come by,
and he slugs me across the face! And everyone else just
kept walking. Because, you know, nobody wants to get hit
by Santa.�
A few moments later, a suspicious looking
guy beelines past three other customers and tries to sell
Aniston a twenty-five-dollar Tower gift card. He�ll let
her have it for twenty. She grins faintly, not enough so
the guy would even notice, and says,�No thanks, dude, I�m
all set.�
That would be an understatement. Never mind
that Aniston, 32, and Pitt, 37, have just celebrated their
first anniversary
and reportedly are about to move into a $15 million Beverly
Hills mansion. With Friends earning each friend $750,000
an episode, Aniston is among the highest-paid actresses
on the tube. She will also be attending the Emmys on September
16th, having been nominated for her role as Rachel. For
Aniston, whose film work has been spotty (Remember Picture
Perfect? No. That�s the point), the TV nomination is a validation.
Rachel began the show as a spoiled rich girl trying to cope
with the working world, but by this late date, the Friends
have all sort of morphed into a UniFriend, and so now Rachel�s
most distinguishing trait is also Aniston�s: They�re very
funny. Aniston isn�t always �on� in an annoying, actorly
way. But she is a deft physical comedian, in that she uses
her body to wrap, stamp and deliver jokes. On the show and
in life, Aniston does this by flashing you a big-eye, or
theatrically steeling her jaw or furrowing her brow. When
she sits, she hunches forward, elbows on knees, letting
you know she�s about to tell a tale. Her tales often involve
swoopin hand gestures.
Aniston mentions how musicians in the Eighties
had something to be pissed off about, with Reagan in the
White House. I ask her what she thinks of Bush. She vents
about him in detail, eloquently, but off the record. She
says she doesn�t want to come off like another actor blathering
about politics. On the record, she�ll only say, �Bush is
a fucking idiot,� and flip him a double-bird, and that Jenna
Bush-the Bush daughter whose underage drinking drinking
has proved embarrassing for the administration-had a summer
internship at Brillstein-Grey, the management firm where
she and Pitt are represented. �We�d pass her in the hall,�
Ansiton says,�And Brad would say, �Heyyyy, Jenna, wanna
beer? I got one in the truck!��
Aniston�s comedic talents become all the more
interesting when you consider she�s also pulling double
duty as a sex symbol. Quite a switch for someone who insists
she was once an ugly duckling. As a chubby, not particularly
popular kid growing up on New York;s Upper West Side in
the Seventies, she got through school hazings by developing
a thick skin and a sense of humor. (She can laugh today
bout her �Carrie moment,� where a group of girls rigged
a bucket of paint to spill on her head and Easter dress
as she entered a classroom.) �It�s a bit of a clich�, you
know,� Aniston says with a sigh. �Comedians are always tortured
souls trying to make people like them, and all that silly
stuff.� Still, spend time with Aniston-who famously shed
thirty pounds (at the behest of her agent) before she was
cast in Friends-and you notice most of her jokes and amusing
anecdotes are self deprecating. �I was a big old fat wuss
who liked Aerosmith,� Aniston confesses. �What are you gonna
do?�
So, yes, even though Aniston has famously
shed those thirty pounds and transformed herself into the
Hot Chick, she continues to carry herself as the Class Clown,
which is a pretty endearing combination. The homeless and
the insane sense this fact, and the do not fear her. She
is, in her funny and affable way, the opposite of untouchable.
Jennifer Aniston is record shopping because
a) she lost her copy of Nevermind, but more important because
b) we want her to talk about music. After all, she is now
starring in Rock Star as the girlfriend-slash-manager of
a Judas Priest-like metal god played by mark Wahlberg. �I�m
totally musically ignorant,� Aniston notes. �I�m going to
humiliate myself.� Be that as it may, here is a selection
of entirely random comments from Aniston on contemporary
music, prompted by CDs she notices while shopping.
Brad, Interiors: �Great album. And not just
because I�m that corny. �The Day Brings� is one of the happiest
songs you�ll ever hear.�
Blur, 13: �Oh, for our wedding march, we had
this amazing full gospel choir play this song. (points to
song on title on back of CD) Actually, could you not say
the song? It�s just a private thing and so beautiful I just
want to keep it.� (I don�t think I�m revealing too much
by saying. No, funny guy, it was not the �Woo-hoo� song.)
Duran Duran, Rio; �I slept out in front of
their hotel when they were on Saturday Night Live. I was
twelve. The day before, we�d waited on line in Times Square
to meet them, I had a rose. They were signing their CD.
Well, LP. Album. The line was around the block, but they
cut it off before we got to the front, so I was standing
there with a wilted rose. Simon Le bon was my favourite.
Actually, it was funny. Brad and I ran into him at a store
in Santa Monica a couple of months ago. I�m looking at something
and I see Brad going, �Dude! You gotta come here!� I�m like,
�What?� and I walk over and Simon was literally standing
right there. I was like, �Oh, my God! Then I went up to
him and said, �I waited outside a hotel for you!� I think
he thought we were nuts. He was putting his receipt into
his wallet and slowly backing away, going, �Uh, great story.
You should bust that one out on Leno.��
Aniston leaves Tower with $184 worth of CDs,
mostly by women (Eva Cassidy, Beth Hart, Lucinda Williams,
Jill Scott). She also commented favourably upon CDs by Journey;
Earth, Wind, and Fire; Styx; Chris Cornell; Fleetwood Mac
and her friend Melissa Etheridge. (OK, to be fair: As far
as Styx goes, she only commented favourably upon their song
�Jennifer.�)
We walk to a bookstore coffee shop across
the street, but it�s closed, so we end up sitting on a low
brick wall in front of a Ticketmaster office building. Aniston
lights a Merit. The sun, behind her, dapples her hair, which
is streaked and shoulder-length, and not even a third-cousin-twice-removed
of the capital-H do that was such a part of her look early
on, and that in retrospect, compared to this more casual
cut, looked kind of evilly shellacked, like an alien parasite
that could attach itself to unsuspecting heads. She glances
around, excited to be on the street, people watching, giving
someone directions to the bus stop, complimenting a random
guy�s jeans, the cars whizzling across Sunset reflected
in her sunglasses. Crouching on the edge of the wall, Aniston
somehow manages to look both entirely relaxed and ready
to pounce. We talk about the drugs/orgies/career-burnout
thing as portrayed in Rock Star. When she asked Pitt how
she might play the role, he offered two words of Zen advice:
Be Sting. �You know, the way Sting�s so sexy, so cool, and
he�s just there, he�s just it, he doesn�t have to try,�
Aniston says, stretching a lock of her hair and slowly wrapping
it around her finger. �I remember thinking, �Be Sting, huh?
All right. Yeah. I�ll try it.��
What
was your first concert?
It was�What�s her name? Oh, my God. Not Patti
Smith. �The Warrior.�
Oh-Patty SMYTH?
But what was her band?
Scandal.
Scandal! (Pause) Unfortunately. (Pause) I didn�t want to
admit that. I didn�t go to concerts much. I get freaked
out in crowds. I caught the drumstick at that one. But,
yeah, I have this weird thing about crowds, waiting on line.
I have this thing where I think I�m going to get murdered
or something. I start getting anxiety attacks.
So no mosh pit?
No! I�m a wimp.
Did you go through a rebellious period?
My version of a rebellious period, yeah.
What was that like? Playing �Hungry Like a Wolf,� only really
loud?
�Hungry Like a Wolf� playing so fucking loud
my mom kicked the door in. Yeah. That. I also listened to
the Sex Pistols for a while, but I don�t think I ever really
liked them. That�s one of those guilty confessions. I don�t
know if I ever want to admit this out loud, because so many
people worship them. But I can�t understand their music.
I can�t make anything out. But I thought it would help me
be accepted. You know, being the uncool fat girl. Well,
not fat. But�
There�s a drug-and-sex orgy in �Rock Star.�
Did you have any Babylon moments like that when you first
came to Hollywood?
I have to say, I never had had anything exciting
or fun like that happen to me. I never woke up in someone�s
bedroom, wearing someone�s boxer shorts, having no idea
how I got there. I think the craziest I got in those days
was at my friend�s bachelorette party, when they tried to
drag me into a gay bar.
So your �Behind the Music� would be more like
Huey Lewis episode than the Motley Crue episode?
Oh, that�s sad! (Covers face with hands in
shame) Huey Lewis? Awww, how pathetic. (Pause) Well, maybe.
I prefer Pat Benatar. She hasn�t done a Behind the Music
yet, has she?
If she hasn�t, she should.
(Brightening) Pat rocks!
The next day, I head over to Stage Twenty-four
on the Warner Bros. Lot on Burbank, where Friends is taped.
It fits your standard image of a studio lot: palm trees,
anonymous stucco soundstages, men in golf carts. Before
being allowed onto the set, I have to put away my notebook
and promise not to write about anything potentially embarrassing
to the show, �like,� the publicist jokes nervously, �if
there�s a fire or something.� Management is touchy about
reporters on the set since Matthew Perry�s latest rehab
stint.
Inside, there are, alas, no fires. The actors
are all wearing street clothes and flipping though their
scripts, as part of a run-through of the season premiere,
part two of the wedding of Chandler (Perry) and Monica (Courteney
Cox). Extras sit in the studio-audience bleachers, working
crossword puzzles and eating catered ziti. Above the banquet-hall
set, the slatted wood guts of the warehouse are visible
like a hive. My secrecy pact forbids me from revealing much
more, other than the fact that there is a running gag involving
David Schwimmer and the line, �I wasn�t farting!�
About an hour later, Aniston�s assistant,
Ozzie, a friendly guy in a Hawaiian shirt, summons me to
her dressing room, which faces the blank wooden backdrop
of the set. The dressing-room area itself looks like a cheap
plywood motel set left over from Psycho IV, though it�s
been jazzed up with white Christmas lights.
Aniston is sitting on a white L-shaped couch.
There�s a half-eaten bowl of soup on her desk, a row of
tiny shoes beneath the desk, four separate remote controls
on the coffee table and an African theme happening-hanging
Moroccan lamp, wooden wall carvings, tribal drum as end
table. Today, Aniston is wearing jeans, a white tank top
and no makeup.
Aniston does not enjoy interviews. She has
learned to be guarded without immediately coming off as
guarded. Sensitive areas include her childhood after the
divorce of her parents. Jennifer was nine. Her mother, Nancy,
moved Jennifer and her half brother John from Sherman Oaks,
California, to Manhattan. Jennifer had little contact with
her father, the actor John Aniston, who plays the villain
on the daytime drama Days of Our Lives. Today they are reconciled.
John Aniston marvels at how his daughter deals with success.
�The pressure on her is unbelievable, but she handles it
with aplomb,� he says. �She and Brad go out all the time.
We�ll all go to dinner, just walk in someplace, and it�s
not a big deal.� It�s Nancy who no longer figures in Jennifer�s
life. Statements Nancy made to the press in 1996 and in
a book, From Mother and Daughter to Friends, constituted
a betrayal to Jennifer. Any resultant emotional wounds are
something Jennifer declines to reopen. �There�s nothing
different about this troubled parent relationship and any
other one,� says Aniston. �So there�s no need to glorify
it by talking about it anymore.�
Matthew Perry, who knew Aniston before Friends
(�Jen and I met in a room where all actors
who have nine failed TV series meet�), has watched her mature
during the past decade. �We both kind of shot into the public
eye together,� says Perry. �It�s been a little bit harder
for me, but Jenny deals with that really, really well. I
saw her change and do some hard work on herself, and she�s
really a deeper soul.�
Much of this is a tribute to her husband.
Aniston met Pitt in 1994, casually. Their managers were
friends. �He was just this sweet guy from Missouri, you
know?� She says. �A normal guy.� Later, having broken up
with their significant others-Aniston with actor Tate Donovan,
Pitt with Gwyneth Paltrow-around the same time, the managers
set up a date. They kept it on the QT for some time, but
five months later they were engaged, and they married on
July 29th of last year. �I had those typical jitters the
day before my wedding,� Aniston recalls, �but the day of,
I was just excited in a good way. The nice thing about weddings
now is it�s not just a chick thing. It�s a team effort.
The stereotype used to be men grumbling, like, �Why are
you making me do this?� There�s nothing more moving than
see a man cry at his own wedding.�
�My friends were all supportive,� Aniston
says, �especially when they found out what a loving human
being Brad is. At first they�re like, �I hope he�s not an
asshole, some conceited fuck or whatever.� But you get past
that in five minutes. Which is a real tribute to who he
is. He just disarms you immediately. But, I mean, nobody
went, �Dude. Brad Pitt!� and gave me a thumbs up and a wink.
They were just happy for me.�
As a bride of one year, Aniston excludes contentment:
�You know if there�s ever an argument, it�s not like you
can go, �Screw you, I�m outta here!� You�re there for the
long haul. It�s a beautiful thing to actually realize that
for the first time, to have that knowing. It takes the heat
and the weight out of things.�
Aniston sighs, squirms on the couch and looks
away, her reflected face now in profile in the mirror behind
her. �He gets it tough, probably, more than anyone, in terms
of people having a preconceived notion of who he is,� she
continues. �That idea of, well, you look that way, then
you must be a certain way.�
Aniston�s reticence is understandable. Since
marrying Pitt, she�s been high profile enough to be the
target of tabloid rumors, many of which are so uncreative
they simply seem to derive from plotlines of her work. Rachel
gets pregnant-so Aniston must be pregnant! Rachel kisses
Winona Ryder during sweep months-so Aniston must be gay!
Three different friends, when I mentioned
I was doing this story, were like, �Oh, yeah, I heard they�re
total potheads.�
That�s a funny one, too. Because you see something
like that-me and my husband, hooked on drugs. Then you read
the story, and it says you smoke pot. It�s not even cocaine
or shooting heroin. Pot! Which I�m not about to confirm
whether that�s true or not. (Pause) I mean, I enjoy it once
in a while. There�s nothing wrong with that. Everything
in moderation. (Pause) Geez, Louise. I�m drowning and I
can�t get out. (Pause) I wouldn�t call myself a pothead.
(Pause) Let�s pick a new topic, please? My mother and father
will be reading.
How about when you were a kid?
Square, square, square.
Aniston auditioned for a musical in her junior
year at High School of Performing Arts (audition song: Journey,
�Open Arms�). She got the part, but at the last minute,
terrified by the notion of performing in front of an audience,
she made up an excuse about an after school-job and bailed.
She made her stage debut the following year, in a school
production of Turandot. She played one of the princess�
maids. �I always got shitty parts,� Aniston says. One of
her teachers, a mean old Russian guy, told her she was a
disgrace and that she should never be allowed to act in
front of people. �I wanted to make people cry, man; to move
people,� she says. �But I was making them laugh.�
Aniston will soon get a chance to stretch
onscreen in The Good Girl, from director Miguel Arteta and
actor-screenwriter Mike White, the team behind last year�s
indie hit Chuck and Buck. Aniston plays a down-and-out Texas
housewife who has an affair with a teenage bag boy. �We
originally considered more typical indie actresses,� says
White, �but it�s cooler seeing someone you don�t expect
in this part, someone who you�re used to seeing in these
beautiful apartments, with these beautiful friends and now
here she is in this Target in the middle of hell. There�s
a scene where she�s blackmailed into sex by one of her husband�s
friends. And when you think she�s also Rachel on Friends,
it�s no small feat that she can pull this off.�
After all her success, Aniston remains humble
in a way that seems unaffected. �When I got offered The
Good Girl, I remember thinking, �Are they sure? Did they
make a mistake?� I mean, I don�t expect anyone, just because
I have name value, to give me a part in their movie. People
who refuse to audition, that�s arrogant to me. Let me show
you I can do it.� She smiles and adds, �Unfortunately, I�m
not a good auditioner, so most of the time, I will fuck
it up.� She shrugs. �And then, you know�� She laughs. �I�m
Rachel on Friends.�
Just before the first episode of Friends aired,
director James Burrows took the cast on a trip to Vegas.
He told them how it would be the last time they�d be able
to go out without being hassled, how their lives were about
to change forever. Recalls Aniston, �We were like, �Yeah,
yeah, yeah�Five hundred dollars! Really? For me?��
Does she recall anything else about those
early days? �It�s hard to remember.
It feels like forever. It is forever. Eight years, man.
That�s way too long. Way too long. It�s longer than anything,
isn�t it? Longer than high school, longer than most relationships
you ever have. I mean, I can say I can�t wait for this fucking
thing to be over. But next fall? We will be a mess. A rotten
mess. The first day back, we always end up in one of our
dressings rooms, all of us. And this time, it was just different.
We were all just a little bit more excited to see each other.
Schwimmer was going �I don�t think we quite understand what�s
happening here. This is it. This is it. It�s sad.��
An assistant pops her head into the dressing
room. Aniston must return to the set. Before she goes, one
wonders if she has any idea of how Friends should wrap up.
She looks startled. �I�ve never given it any thought. Never.�
This seems to invite suggestions, so one is
proffered. Aniston immediately grins. �Yes!� she exclaims.
�We could all be wearing the same Nike shoes, covered in
blankets with just the Nikes showing. All in a big bed in
Monica and Chandler�s bedroom.� Now Aniston openly laughs.
A sitcom era ending seemed so sad only a moment ago. But
how about a sitcom era ending in group suicide? �We�re all
dead!� Aniston howls. �That would be funny, right?�
