‘I NEEDED THERAPY’ A-list actress Jennifer Aniston talks relationships
Jennifer Aniston reflects on a damaging relationship with her mother, being judged by the public and the idea of a ‘Friends’ reunion
In her latest film, Dumplin’, Jennifer Aniston tackles a whole new can of worms in her role as a former beauty queen whose plus-size daughter signs up for her mum’s Texan pageant as a protest. Despite hilarious moments shared on set with Australian actress Danielle Macdonald, 27 (of Patti Cake$ fame), Aniston, 49, in an exclusive interview with WHO, takes time to reflect on her relationship with her own mother, Nancy Dow, and how it has hindered the course of her life. Dumplin’ includes a complex relationship between mother and daughter, and looks at what kids do to get their parents attention. Can you relate? One of the main reasons I wanted to play Rosie was because this was a similar relationship in a way to my mother and so it really resonated. It was really about this little girl wanting to be seen and wanting to be loved and a mum who was too occupied with just the things that didn’t quite matter but she didn’t really know any better. Then they take this journey together and rediscover each other. Willowdean [played by Macdonald] has resentment towards her mum and the pageants and what that all means and what it looks like and I’m sure the pageant girls had their idea of who they thought little dumplin’ was and what she looked like. At the end of this movie you realise that all of these people, no matter what shapes or sizes or whatever they look like, they have so much more in common than they probably ever really understood. So it’s only by actually leaning into each other that they get to find themselves. Did you go through a pageant phase? Me? Hell no! You never fantasised about that as a kid? No, I could barely walk a straight line and not fall on my behind! Did you ever get over that experience growing up with a disapproving or neglectful parent? You have to. And it takes a lot of therapy, but you do absolutely get over it. That was her projection. It had nothing to do with me. What do you think about beauty pageants? Oh, I don’t think it’s great at all, especially for younger children. I don’t think people should be judged for their outsides. I don’t love that world and I find it quite disturbing, in a way, what they are striving for. This movie is about judging and I think that people have judged you, too. How do you deal with the judgement? Well, it’s a decision, it’s a choice you actually have to make [about whether to react to being judged]. Also, you make movies like this that are about kind of taking away, Dumplin’ sort of walks into this pageant world as a judge of the other contestants and of her mother, and the take away of this is about how we have these preconceived judgements of people that we don’t know. What’s the biggest misconception people have about you? Why is that your go-to question? Do you ask everyone? We get honest answers. So how has Hollywood shaped or changed you then? I don’t love being famous. I don’t love the negativity that comes along with it. That’s what I don’t love. I don’t love the judgements. I feel like what we do – what we get to do every day is go to work, feel excited, inspired, and create something that will be put together and hopefully then put out into the world and received with, you know, with whatever it wants to get received with. We work hard and we do it because we love it, in order to entertain you all, so [the negativity] the only part that I don’t love about it. I also feel that has increased over the years – that negativity has grown and judgement has grown – and I don’t know if that’s the internet and faceless people being able to have a platform but I think it just
makes it grow like a cancer. You have a big birthday – 50th – coming up in February. Big? Is it going to be a big celebration? I mean, every day we get up I think we need to celebrate and be excited that we’re still here but, of course, I always love celebrating those sort of milestones. I think they’re worth celebrating and not shying away from, even though they do offer up their own sort of contemplation of “Where have I been?” and “What have I done?” and “What do I still have left to do?”
There’s a lot left to do, and I don’t really know what that is. I sort of find it as it comes, you know. There are so many places all over the world that I haven’t been to that I’m dying to go to and I keep saying that, and eventually I think I will actually do it. I want to take a safari. I want to go on safari. How do you feel when you see a Friends episode on TV? It’s a wonderful thing to have been a part of and we all sort of still find a great deal of joy when we get to see it, so that’s always fun. What about a prequel or a sequel?
I’ve always said I’m open to anything. I would not turn my nose up ever at being able to be with those five people again. Take us into the room where you watch TV at home. What’s it like in there? How comfortable is your sofa and how much do you watch television? I watch the news, I love documentaries. My viewing area is usually in our kitchen and it’s a comfortable chair, but usually I’m at my desk so I multitask and make sure I can answer emails or watch the news or I’ll watch a documentary, or I’ll have girlfriends come over and we go into the living room where there’s a bigger couch and maybe a little bit bigger of a TV and we will watch some sort of fun, brainless sort of mindless television. What are the shows you binged or watch every week? Well, The Crown I love. Ozark, obviously, it’s so good. I try to get into Handmaid’s Tale, but it’s really hard to watch. It’s too much. You have a lot of young people in your life as you are close to the kids of your close friends. Do they look up to you or try to emulate you? In their lives? No, they’ve known me since I was unglamorous. I mean how I look now? This [polished look for the shoot] just takes about a couple of hours! It is all sweat pants, jeans and flip-flops on the weekend, and those girls are extraordinary because they’re all products of the women that I’m in love with and have been with for over 30 years. I don’t really give them advice or anything – except candy, but a lot of it! How often do you see them? Every week. We call it Sunday Funday. I mean, that’s not every, every week, obviously, but it’s one they love to come to – it’s like a band. They love to have their birthdays there and it’s sort of it’s a fun, magical place for them. Did you take co-star Danielle Macdonald under your wing, too? She blew me away in Patti Cake$ and she came over to my place really to talk about Dumplin’ and what did we eat? We drank Smartwater [which Aniston advertises] and we ate vegetables and hummus. That’s about all we did – and I showed her dog videos! How was filming Modern Mystery with Adam Sandler? I love Adam and his wife and kids, and one of the jokes that Adam and I kept always saying was because when we started filming in Montreal [Canada], he would say, “I don’t want to leave Montreal, it’s beautiful but wait till you get to Portofino!” And he was right! Then I didn’t want to leave Portofino [Italy] and he said, “Wait till you get to Lake Como,” and he was right again! It was fantastic to film in such great places. The film has storybook moments and we wonder how you live your own life outside the projections of what people assume it is? Well, I feel as a young kid growing up dreaming of becoming an actress and achieving what my dream was, and then being fortunate enough to continue working and living my dream of being an actress, I feel that I had the really rare moment. It doesn’t really happen that often, finding true success, and it’s a big job and it takes a lot of work to sustain that and to continue to be good at it and to be better over time, and to still be excited and to still feel creatively excited. And then, as you do that, you start to realise, well, just being an actress for hire is not as interesting to me now, so I would also like to explore more behind the camera, and keep growing. So what’s it like being Jennifer Aniston? It’s awesome! How am I supposed to answer that! [ Laughs.] But seriously, I hope I’ve described the thrill I have that I’m at this place in my life that I still get to do this, and that really is awesome.
“That was [my mother’s ] projection. It had nothing to do with me”