Introduction/the writing:

Hi, this is Jennifer Aniston. I played Justine in The Good Girl. I got involved with this wonderful movie when it came across my desk. Miguel [Arteta] and Mike [White] sent me the script and I er... pretty much fell in love with it by page 5. It was sorta just luck. Timing. Here's the wonderful Retail Rodeo. There's a happy... happy girl. Mike didn't come on the set that much. I mean, unless he was working. Mike's not one of those... 'Where is all this heads?' He wanted to be an actor when he was there. Unless someone pointed to him, if you didn't know it was Mike White, the writer. We didn't change a word of dialogue from the first time I read the script until we shot it. It's... it was just that letter perfect. And I guess having a couple of Mike's friends... they said that since four years ago, when he wrote it, not a word of dialogue has been changed. They said he wrote a perfect script.

I had a great dialect coach, named Joy and she was awesome. She just sort of stood by some days and found something that I sorta did anyway as a kid, just sorta mimicking people.

This is a funny scene. Mike White does this... (chuckles) Brilliant.

The cast/comedy vs. drama:

It was so hard to remember what days were what, 'cause we were... we shot in 33 days and ehm... I've never looked at a call sheet and seen so many set-ups. (chuckles) There was like 6 scenes a day. All over the movie. In the beginning, in the middle - Oh, this is funny. These guys [John C. Reilly and Tim Blake Nelson] are amazing. That's all I can say. I was so nervous. All of the sudden, here I was like this person and being asked to work with two of these great actors. The whole cast, I just kinda felt like, 'Wow, I hope I don't disappoint these people.' And sure enough, I got to feed off such greatness. And John C. is one of the funniest guys and Tim Blake is one of the sweetest, funniest guys. They make it easy to be an actor. They make you a better actor. All of them.

I don't know if there's much of a difference between comedy and drama, you know. There's... of course there is but I think life is sort of fulfilled with all of it. And someone has said how after watching this movie, they didn't really know how to place it, you know. They didn't know if it is... it's too comedic to be a tragedy and yet too tragic to be a comedy, which I think that's kind of life. You know, it has all the ebbs and flows. It's not really, you know, categorized. Drama, comedy, action. I don't know. I think this is what it makes it sort of appealing. That it sort of has all the elements. And the approach is just being honest. I mean, the same thing with comedy. All you have to is a level of truth to it. In order of it to be funny. In order of it to move you.

Working with Jake:

It's pretty easy to establish chemistry. From the minute we met at this audition at Mike's house, he [Jake Gyllenhaal] kinda just blew us all away. We all fell instantly in love with him. After he "broke Mike's house", as we call it. He threw a chair. (chuckles) Broke the door. In Mike's brand new house. He's just one of the sweetest, so funny, charming, professional, solid actors. He's just a sweet, sweet guy. And he comes from this amazing, talented family. And er... he's a love. It's impossible not to just melt and instantly know what you're doing with him. We had a rough time, like I was saying before, just in terms of, you know, this schedule that we had. We were back-to-back with everything. It sort of felt like you had to rush through things and you didn't quite get everything that you wanted. We'd sit there and scream at... vent to each other, or cry on each other, which we did... I did many times. I was pretty leaky. I was quite a crier on this one.

Stunt work/wardrobe:

Deborah Rush is brilliant. Hysterical. I did all my own driving, by the way. (laughs) This was me driving. I almost threw the camera guy out of the car. And Chuck E. Cheese, which I'd never heard of until this movie.

Notice the wardrobe in this movie. We tried to have a big bonfire at the end, but they wouldn't let us. It was Lee "Relaxed Seat." A nice way of saying "for big asses." (chuckles)

The love scene:

This is were it all gets real creepy. (chuckles) It was my first love scene and Jake was sweet, thank God. It feels so much longer when you watch it on screen than it actually was. Miguel was great. Closed set, nothing new. Your basic love scene. It was gruelling and painstaking, and all that, and you want to be done in two takes, which I think we did. We did two takes and that was it. We had all sorts of padding in between. So much that Miguel said, "You've got to take something out. It looks like he's doing your knees." (laughs)

"I saw you":

(laughs) Look at his face. I guess that, all of the sudden, the embracing of religion shows her intense guilt. Where else to run to but to good old Bible study? Again, not a lot of preparation. We were on the fly. It was all there: the words... Tim. He's kind of scary.

Re-shooting:

This was the scene were Jake basically, during his audition... his audition scene. He broke Mike's house. Threw the chair against the door, which is a box. They also re-shot half of this scene. I find it interesting. It's a little moment at the end. You don't understand why you need it and then you see it and think, "It made all the difference in the world and I'm not even sure why." After this moment, right after he throws the box. And Mike's door breaks. "'Cause I'm too intensified for you!" This is all re-shoot. They wanted to raise the stakes.

Oh yeah. This is the scene where he [Brad Pitt] had mentioned that it would be good to see her lose it, freak out and get terrified. We didn't really see that at all. It was very small. We made it pretty quick.

Justine's dilemma:

She doesn't know how to be true to herself. She keeps "yessing" everybody, trying to dig herself out, but she just keeps digging deeper. You can't believe it's going to come. That's what I think is the most amazing choice of Mr Mike White.

Voiceovers:

I did the voiceover work two or three months afterwards. That was the easiest part of the movie. It was so simple. Just reading it, basically. And we knew it so well that now, having seen the movie, this voiceover made much more sense. People say that voiceovers are bandages for movies. If you need to fix a movie, patch it with a voiceover. Cut scenes out and throw in a voiceover. This was definitely not one of the situations. It's so perfect and set such a great tone, and so necessary. These movies are so rare to find. Just hearing it again, I can hear the words over and over. It's a sign of a well-written script, when you can hear it, which is not normal for me.

First day of filming:

Tim's first day, of course, was the day we shot this scene. He had to get naked the first day. That's coming up. That's not the easiest first day. Poor John C.'s first day was masturbating into a cup. (chuckles) I think Miguel tried to find the most difficult scenes to start with. Our first day was the day of feeding him [Holden] the blackberries. You think, "You're starting us right in the middle, before we know who we are or what we're doing." Oy, oy, oy, this is awful.

Phil:

Sweet Phil. Isn't it amazing how he just... John C. really brings the sweetest, most gentle qualities to this. He's such a big, gentle giant. It's so interesting how delicate this whole movie is. It's not on the nose, you know, with caricatures of these people.

Justine's choice:

This is where the big decision. You think, why wouldn't she choose going on her own? The choice of not taking the road where she'd be alone seems probably to scary to take. I think she realises, after tasting this wild side and a bit of passion again, that she's fine, she's staying put.

Emotional scenes:

This was a really hard day. John C is such a good actor. He so breaks your heart, to see his little face quivering. He's usually a comedic character actor. He really hit some notes on this that are powerful and beautiful. [Justine gets slapped by Phil in the movie] That hurt. I'm teasing. It didn't hurt. I think he was a good 3'', 5'' away from my face. I remember doing this over and over again, that we just cried all day. Nobody would have a hard time connecting to this scene, the prospect of that happening. It keeps getting more and more absurd. She just lies. It's a way of living. Cover it up, cover it up. Say anything. He had covered this, too: single, single, two-shot, tighter two. And then he ended up just leaving it like this. That was the last take we did on this, too, the last one, so it was all afternoon of doing it over and over again. This is their moment where they connect for the first time and they relate.