Jennifer Aniston raw, unfiltered and as you've never seen her before: "It's irksome to be called beautiful"

It's the summer of 1997. Friends has been airing for almost three years and its popularity is almost unprecedented. Jennifer Aniston, along with her five co-leads, is one of the most famous actors in the world.

Still relatively early in her Hollywood career, she sits down with Radio Times to talk life, love and fame – and proceeds to give one of her rawest interviews to date.

This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine in July 1997.

She is known the world over as rich-kid Rachel from Friends, instantly recognisable on account of that haircut. But, unlike her screen counterpart, Jennifer Aniston hasn’t had it easy.

Cultural phenomena come in all shapes and sizes, and America’s First Haircut must be one of the most enchanting as she curls herself foetally, knees tucked insouciantly under her chin, in a London hotel suite previously “cased” by her minder, to discuss life and other imponderables, such as success.

“It’s a bit of a shock for anyone,” says Aniston, who plays Rachel, the rich girl turned waitress in Friends. “I don’t think it’s changed me, although others assume it has, and treat me differently. I’m still the same person – but a bit happier because I’m doing what I love, and have a healthier bank balance.

"Some actors strive for fame, but I find it surreal and silly. When I see myself on a magazine cover I don’t think it’s me – just someone doing a job, who’s all glammed-up. I find it boring having to talk about myself. It’s amazing that all of a sudden people think you must be interesting when, in reality, you’re just like everyone else on the street.”

She smokes a lot, fiddles with her hair, clutching strands and rolling them through her fingers. I’d resolved it was too naff to mention “the Rachel” – her shaggy, oval makeover, which became a worldwide craze – but her tonsorial activity prompts me to mutter how embarrassed I am to ask, but…

“The hair? You want to talk about that? Let’s move on. It only happened because Chris, my brilliant hairdresser, cut it too short one day by accident. He then turned it into the same sort of cut I’d seen before, but suddenly it was this ‘thing’ which caused a frenzy. Very flattering, but it went too far, don’t you think? Hair is hair.”

It’s irksome to be called beautiful

And Friends is Friends, a $500-million-a-year milch cow (in syndication fees) for its producers, watched by thirty million Americans and by up to five million British viewers, a sitcom whose six stereotyped flatmates – one for all prejudices and aspirations – you either love or hate.

It’s very politically correct (although there are no Black actors in it yet) and either a sassy commentary on aspirational twenty-something urban life or a pathetic fantasy land of slick one-liners and well-rehearsed double-take facial expressions. Rachel is the ditsy, sexy one in short skirts and bare midriff, having an iffy relationship with Ross (David Schwimmer), a shy palaeontologist whose ex-wife lives with a lesbian.

“It’s only recently I’ve been able to watch the show and not run away screaming at the sight of myself. I’m not so whiny as Rachel, and I didn’t grow up rich. Our values are different, but there are certain similarities – love of clothes. I don’t always wear short skirts and although I’ve bared my midriff once or twice I’m always conscious about not wanting to. It seems unnecessary.

"This sex symbol bit is hysterical. It’s so ironic, because I grew up not very confident about my beauty. I was typically Greek with a big ass and boobs. I’ve offended Greeks by talking like that but, my gosh, let’s be frank – all those I know have that sort of figure, and there’s nothing wrong with big boobs and a big bum. But it’s irksome to be called beautiful. Sometimes I feel awful and don’t want to go to the gym ever again in my life. Keeping healthy is so boring.”

Maybe, now she’s 28, she’d just like to be a Greek housewife? “I’d like to be a fit housewife who can eat whatever she wants and doesn’t have to work out – a sort of miracle.” She has had several well-publicised relationships, but has now settled down with an actor, Tate Donovan, Sandra Bullock’s ex. The couple recently announced their engagement.

“We gave each other ‘claddagh’ rings on our first anniversary, with neither of us knowing the other was going to. Very romantic.” She shows me the silver ring, embossed with a heart. “If it faces out, you’re available; if it faces in, it means you’re taken. I’d love to be married, but my generation takes these things slowly, to make sure it’s a good match. That’s smart. I know living in sin is such a thing but, my gosh, how would you ever marry someone without living with them first? It seems insane.”

So is she living with him? She giggles. “No. Not yet. I’m frightened of infidelity. I watched my mother dealing with it, and saw the pain. I have yet to experience it myself. I’ll leave them before they do that. It’s like getting sick – something you don’t want to have to deal with, and wouldn’t wish on anyone.”

I’d love to be married, but my generation takes these things slowly

Her father, John, is an actor, and her mother, Nancy, gave up acting and modelling when she had children. The late Telly Savalas (Kojak) was her godfather. Early life, growing up in Manhattan, was blissful until, at nine, her parents separated. “And so began the tragic life of an actor,” she says, ruefully ironic. “I was unhappy because the people I loved were unhappy. I behaved badly in school and, only later, realised I became the class clown so that I’d be sent to the principal’s office. My parents would be told, and that guaranteed I’d get them both in the same room. I enjoyed the attention and created a lot of drama.

“Dad told me I wasn’t interesting, which wasn’t great for my confidence. He was as good a father as he could have been – leave it at that. We’re better friends as adults. That’s often the way, which is a shame, isn’t it? I wouldn’t change anything, though.

"If you have to deal with traumatic events at a young age your emotions are opened up. They become ‘buttons’ you tap into, and it helps with the job, but I do know creative people who are very dramatic and tragic, and you feel they don’t want to come out of it in case they lose their talent. That’s a trap.”

Despite having had a painting shown in the Metropolitan Museum of Art when she was 11, Aniston’s ambition was always to act. “Dad didn’t want me to, but knew if he told me that I’d be even more determined. He warned I wouldn’t make any money and the rejection would rip out my heart. I didn’t believe it. I wanted to find out for myself and prove something to him.

"I guess I’m ambitious. I definitely wanted more money than when I was growing up. I couldn’t order a Diet Coke if we went to lunch, nor invite friends. I don’t like the word ‘no’. But the money we earn in Hollywood still blows me away. It’s insane. I suppose, though, we supply a great source of entertainment and escape, and a whole part of our lives is taken away and given out.

"I have to worry about security. Some people know where I live, and I wish they didn’t. I didn’t realise that sort of attention came with the dinner, and it almost makes the whole thing not worthwhile. I don’t know what price you put on it.”

A hundred thousand dollars an episode? “No. We’re paid less than that. We all earn the same. People would love to hear that we row about money, but it’s awfully boring. We get on so well, have the same sense of humour and there’s a chemistry between us, which is very rare. Sure the show is unreal and you have to suspend your disbelief a tad, but we try to make the stories and characters as dead-on as we can. It could be timeless and continue until we’re all married and living in our own apartments. That would cost a lot of money, because they’d need more sets.”

Her path to riches was strewn with failure. “There were many at first,” she recalls. “I did lots of jobs. I was a waitress (a bad one, but I loved it), a receptionist in an advertising agency, and I worked in a skincare centre, an ice-cream parlour – and in telephone marketing. That was awful. I’m the most unaggressive person when it comes to selling, so I phoned friends and quit after a week.”

Acting jobs weren’t much better. “There were some awful films and sitcoms. I didn’t know any better, but they devalue your art. Most of them were so bad I don’t remember anything about them.” She was a bit too voluptuously Greek, so she lost 30lb and then the big break came in 1994. “It just sort of happened. I did an audition for Friends, read the script, laughed, went home and, an hour later, had the part.”

She’d moved to Los Angeles when she was 20, and lived in a commune in the Hollywood hills. “I didn’t like LA at first. I was a bit of a New York snob. I thought it was all bubblegum, fake boobs and fluff. I assumed they had no culture. Well, they don’t, but I love living there now.” Maybe she’s become fluffy herself? “No, I don’t think that will ever happen.”

There’s definitely a lot of jealousy among actresses

What about the goddesses? “You might think that’s crazy,” she says, pulling her knees even tighter into her chin, smiling, and lighting another cigarette. At summer and winter solstices, and other significant astrological moments, a group of between seven and twenty of her women friends, who call themselves “the goddesses”, meet in the hills, form a circle which they light with candles and into which they throw personal belongings.

“We sit round, play music, talk about what’s happening to us, bang drums, sing songs, eat a big dinner. It’s really wonderful to get a group of women together for an evening to celebrate womanhood. Women are not great to each other a lot of the time – I don’t know why. Insecurity, competition. There’s definitely a lot of jealousy among actresses, because of the limited number of roles and the drive for success.

"I’ve been jealous of others, in the sense of, ‘I really wanted that part,’ not ‘I hate them.’ It’s not their fault. Gosh, it might be they just had the right hair colour. It shouldn’t be like that, so we do our circle to make women feel comfortable with women. It’s a mind-blowing experience. There’s so much pressure on women in terms of beauty and status. Although they’re now emerging, they still worry about what’s attractive, and how to keep a man. Men don’t bitch about each other nearly so much.”

Basically, I jest, women are still the inferior sex. “Yeah,” she agrees. “I think they are. They shouldn’t be, but so many feel inferior to men. They’re coming out of it, which is why they’re fighting so hard. Shows like Friends can help. We have a sort of ‘circle’ storyline about women burning things belonging to old boyfriends, standing up to them, clearing our closets. That’s part of what viewers enjoy.”

It has become so successful there is the obvious pitfall of typecasting. “I don’t think it will happen. It’s all in my control and depends on the choices I make. I couldn’t ever top Friends on TV, so I don’t know if I want to do any more after this. I’d like to make some wonderful films.”

At present, she is filming The Object of My Affection with Alan Alda and Nigel Hawthorne, in which she plays a young woman who falls in love with a gay man. “Women often do that, because they can actually communicate with them. I had a big crush on one in high school, and was so sad he wouldn’t give me the time of day. I didn’t realise he was gay until later.”

She is often described as the '90s version of Farrah Fawcett, star of the seventies hit Charlie’s Angels – an ominous comparison, as Fawcett had relatively little subsequent success.

“Maybe she made incorrect choices. It’s so hard. I realise people wait to watch you fail. They build you up and slash you down. Steven Spielberg told me it’s fascinating how fame and success are followed by demolition. Even if you’re just an actor in a movie, you’re nervous. If you’re in a big, successful show the pressure is magnified. I worry I could be demolished.”

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