Getting out of the ‘Friends’ zone

Jennifer Aniston talks about excitement of playing strong female characters 10 years after Friends concluded its run.

LOS ANGELES:

After playing sitcom sweetheart Rachel Green in long-running television comedy Friends for 10 years, Jennifer Aniston has spent the last decade looking for roles where she can “kick some ass.”

In Life of Crime, out in US theatres on Friday, Aniston taps into a 1970s Detroit trophy wife and socialite, Mickey Dawson, who finds herself held for ransom while her cheating husband debates whether to pay for her release.



Aniston, 45, talked about  the excitement of being in a caper comedy, playing strong female characters and the Friends phenomenon 10 years after it concluded its run.

What resonated with her about the character of Mickey in her upcoming film? “It was such fun, as any Elmore Leonard-adapted screenplay you would imagine would be, and her character’s arc was so awesome. It’s so rare that you get to find women especially in an ensemble piece that actually have so much to do and have such a great beginning and an ending, so I was just right up for it from the get-go,” said Anniston.

The actor didn’t have any trouble connecting with the character. “I was a kid in the seventies, and women were stuck in unhappy situations that they didn’t know how to get out of, not like today where if something smells even a little bit bad, it’s like ‘I’m high-tailing it out of here.’ So I really loved how her character was written and she was actually a badass,” she said.

Having played Rachel on Friends for 10 years, she felt drawn towards strong characters. “Women usually who have a really positive arc and become stronger at the end of it, coming out from underneath circumstances that just seem unsurvivable, and the fact that you actually get through it and survive and get stronger and kick some ass. I like that. I can’t say (Horrible Bosses character) Doctor Julia’s that, she doesn’t deserve it,” said the actor.

When asked how she feels about the upcoming 20th anniversary of Friends’ premiere in September 2014. She responded asking if it hasn’t happened already. “The first time it aired? I thought it was last year. Oh good, I’m a year younger! I just saved a year, so great,” she said.

The 45-year-old actor loves how the obsession for her character goes on. “I love how it sort of keeps on, it’s like the little Energizer bunny, it just keeps on ticking, it’s amazing. It transcends, I don’t know what it is about it, but it makes me very happy. I love it even when it comes on.”

Does she miss Rachel? “I get her every day in my house. I don’t have to miss her, she’s everywhere.”  

Published in The Express Tribune, September 3^rd, 2014.

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