Jennifer Aniston

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Jennifer Aniston, the American actress, once approached a television executive at a Los Angeles gas station and asked him for reassurance. She was depressed. Four of her television shows had failed, and she wanted someone in the business to tell her it was worth continuing.

  She could not have known how much that short conversation would matter. Her films have since grossed over $1.6 billion worldwide, and as of 2023 she ranked among the highest-paid actresses in the world.

  Yet her early résumé included canceled series and a horror film she still finds embarrassing. What did that executive say, and what did it set in motion? How did one sitcom role become both a gift and a shadow she spent years trying to step out of? And how did she hold the public's affection for so long?

  21161723

• 2. Childhood and Lean Years

  ›

  Jennifer Joanna Aniston was born on the 11th of February 1969 in Sherman Oaks, a neighborhood of Los Angeles. Her father, John Aniston, was a Greek-born actor whose family roots lay on the island of Crete. Her mother, Nancy Dow, was an actress too. A maternal great-grandfather, Louis Grieco, came from Italy. Telly Savalas, one of her father's best friends, was her godfather. She has two half-brothers, John Melick on her mother's side and Alex Aniston on her father's.

  The family moved to New York City while she was a child. Her father worked in television, yet she was discouraged from watching it, and she found ways around the rule. At age six she started at a Waldorf school, and her parents divorced when she was nine.

  It was at that Waldorf school, when she was 11, that she discovered acting. She went on to enroll at Manhattan's Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. Anthony Abeson was her drama teacher there. On stage she performed in Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window and Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters.

  Her first professional work was off-Broadway, in productions such as For Dear Life and Dancing on Checker's Grave. To pay her way she worked as a telemarketer, a waitress and a bike messenger. In 1988 she had a small uncredited part in Mac and Me, a science fiction adventure that critics panned. The next year she appeared on The Howard Stern Show as a spokesmodel for Nutrisystem and moved back to Los Angeles.

  In 1990 the series Molloy gave her a first regular television role. She also appeared in a series adapted from the 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Both shows were quickly canceled. That same year she played a teenage summer camp counselor in the made-for-television film Camp Cucamonga.

  Her first major film part came in 1993, in the horror comedy Leprechaun, where she played a spoiled teenager. A 2014 Entertainment Weekly retrospective named it her worst role, and Aniston has admitted her embarrassment over it. Two more comedies, The Edge and Muddling Through, failed as well. She also guest-starred on Quantum Leap, Herman's Head and Burke's Law.

  A new NBC sitcom was about to change that record.

  610131516

• 3. Rachel Green

  ›

  A few months after Warren Littlefield told her to keep acting, he helped get her cast in Friends. Littlefield was head of NBC entertainment, and the sitcom was set to debut on the network's 1994-1995 fall lineup.

  The producer wanted Aniston to audition for Monica Geller. Courteney Cox was judged better suited to that part, so Aniston became Rachel Green. She was also offered a featured spot on Saturday Night Live and turned it down in favor of Friends. She kept playing Rachel until the series ended in 2004.

  The show was a massive hit, and its cast gained worldwide recognition. Rachel was an especially popular character. Aniston received five Primetime Emmy Award nominations, two for Supporting Actress and three for Lead Actress, and she won for Lead Actress. She was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards and won in 2003, as Best Actress in a Television Series, Musical or Comedy. The role also brought nine Screen Actors Guild nominations and one win.

  The Guinness Book of World Records says that during the final season she and her female co-stars became the highest-paid television actresses of all time, at $1 million per episode. Viewers cared just as much about Rachel's romance with Ross Geller, played by David Schwimmer. Polls and magazines often voted the pair television's favorite couple.

  Aniston disliked the hairstyle she wore during her first two years on the show. Even so, the cut known as "The Rachel" became very popular.

  2123262728

• 4. Leaving Friends Behind

  ›

  In 1996, while Friends was still on the air, Aniston joined the ensemble cast of the romantic comedy She's the One. Her first starring film vehicle followed in 1997. In Picture Perfect she played a struggling young advertising executive opposite Kevin Bacon and Jay Mohr. Reviews were mixed and the commercial result moderate, but many critics warmed to her and said she had screen presence.

  In 1998 she played a woman who falls for a gay man, played by Paul Rudd, in The Object of My Affection. The next year she starred as a restaurant waitress in the cult film Office Space. Also in 1999, she took her first voice acting role, as a single mother in Brad Bird's animated science fiction film The Iron Giant. Critics were enthusiastic, yet the film was considered a box office failure on release. It has since earned a cult following.

  Rock Star, in 2001, put her opposite Mark Wahlberg and Dominic West. Then came The Good Girl in 2002, an independent dramedy in which she played an unglamorous cashier who cheats on her husband. It took in over $14 million in North America in limited release.

  Roger Ebert called it her breakthrough, writing that she had "at last decisively broken with her Friends image". He added, "It will no longer be possible to consider her in the same way."

  Her biggest commercial success in film arrived in 2003 with Bruce Almighty. She played the girlfriend of a television field reporter, played by Jim Carrey, who is offered the chance to be God for one week. The film grossed $484 million worldwide and ranked as the fifth-highest-grossing feature of its year.

  In 2004 she starred opposite Ben Stiller in Along Came Polly, playing the old classmate of a tightly wound newlywed. It opened at number one in North America with $27.7 million and eventually made $172 million worldwide.

  3032333942

• 5. The Comedy Ledger

  ›

  In 2005 Aniston played an alluring woman having an affair with an advertising executive in the thriller Derailed. She also played an obituary and wedding announcement writer in the romantic comedy Rumor Has It. Both films were moderate box office hits. The next year she played a single, cash-strapped maid in the independent drama Friends with Money, which had a limited release.

  The Break-Up, in 2006, paired her with Vince Vaughn as a couple who both refuse to move out of their newly purchased home. Reviews were mixed, but it opened to about $39.17 million and earned $204 million worldwide. Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club wrote that it was like watching the "'we were on a break' episode of Friends stretched to feature length." CinemaBlend instead praised it as a "refreshing flipside" to formulaic romantic movies.

  In 2007 she guest-starred in an episode of Dirt, playing the rival of Courteney Cox's character. She also appeared on 30 Rock as a woman who stalks Jack Donaghy, which earned her a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.

  Marley & Me arrived on Christmas Day 2008, with Aniston and Owen Wilson as the owners of the title dog. It set a record for the largest Christmas Day box office, at $14.75 million. Over the four-day weekend it earned $51.7 million and stayed at number one for two weeks. The worldwide total reached $242.7 million.

  He's Just Not That Into You followed in 2009, opposite Ben Affleck. It grossed $178.8 million globally and opened at number one in the United States. Reviews were mixed, but critics singled out Aniston, Affleck, Ginnifer Goodwin and Jennifer Connelly as standouts.

  In 2010 she played the former wife of a bounty hunter, played by Gerard Butler, in The Bounty Hunter. The Hollywood Reporter called it a "thoroughly unfunny adult cartoon". Still, it earned over $130 million worldwide. The Switch, with Jason Bateman, cast her as a single woman who decides to have a child using a sperm bank. Its opening weekend drew what The Hollywood Reporter called "a dispiriting $8.4 million". Metacritic counted 13 positive verdicts out of 30 critics.

  That year she also guest-starred on the season two premiere of the ABC sitcom Cougar Town, as a psychiatrist. Her announcement drew excitement and was dubbed her return to television. The A.V. Club wrote that the bit highlighted how much she was built to be a TV star.

  In 2011 she starred opposite Adam Sandler in Just Go with It, as an office manager posing as the wife of a plastic surgeon. She also played a sexually aggressive dentist in Horrible Bosses. Each made over $100 million in North America and $200 million worldwide.

  Wanderlust, in 2012, reunited her with Paul Rudd as a married couple who join a commune after losing their money. Universal Pictures bought the script, and Judd Apatow produced. Reviews were positive, yet the film grossed only $21 million worldwide against a $35 million production budget.

  We're the Millers, in 2013, matched her with Jason Sudeikis. She played a struggling stripper who agrees to pose as a wife for a drug deal. Reviews were mixed, but it grossed $269 million against a $37 million budget.

  4750515962

• 6. Cake and a Second Act

  ›

  Cake, released in 2014, gave Aniston the role of Claire Simmons, an astringent woman who struggles with chronic pain. Reviews of the film were mixed. Her performance, though, was acclaimed, and some critics called it "Oscar-worthy". The Toronto International Film Festival described it as "heartbreakingly good". Gregory Ellwood of HitFix wrote, "Aniston makes you believe in Claire's pain." The role brought nominations for a Golden Globe, a SAG Award and a Critics' Choice Movie Award.

  That same year she played a stoic socialite targeted by an ill-planned kidnapping plot in Life of Crime. The film adapted Elmore Leonard's 1978 novel The Switch and opened in limited theaters to positive reviews. Catherine Shoard of The Guardian called her performance "endearingly comic". She also reprised her role in Horrible Bosses 2.

  In 2015 she played a reluctant therapist in the screwball comedy She's Funny That Way. Wesley Morris of Grantland called her "one of the great screen comedians."

  Garry Marshall directed Mother's Day in 2016, with Aniston as a recently divorced mother of two opposite Julia Roberts and Kate Hudson. Critics panned it, though it was a moderate commercial success. She also voiced a workaholic, overprotective mother in the animated film Storks, which grossed over $183.4 million against a $70 million budget. Her last film of that year was Office Christmas Party, in which she played a frigidly cold company head. It grossed $114.5 million worldwide.

  At the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, audiences saw The Yellow Birds, a war drama directed by Alexandre Moors. Aniston played the mother of a deceased soldier, an exception to her usual taste because she found the film so beautifully written. It reached video on demand in June 2018.

  In December 2018 Netflix released the musical comedy Dumplin', with Aniston as star and executive producer. It was her first project for a streaming service. Another Netflix comedy, Murder Mystery, reunited her with Adam Sandler and premiered on the 14th of June 2019. The sequel followed on the 31st of March 2023.

  On the 1st of November 2019, Aniston returned to television by producing and starring in the Apple TV+ drama The Morning Show, alongside Reese Witherspoon. It was her first main television role since Friends ended in 2004. For the first season she won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series. She also received a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series and two Golden Globe nominations. Later seasons earned her more nominations at the Critics' Choice, Golden Globe, Emmy and SAG awards.

  In May 2021 she reunited with her Friends cast mates for the HBO Max special Friends: The Reunion. Her producing credit on it earned her a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded).

  9293969798

• 7. Business and Giving

  ›

  Soon after Friends began, Aniston and co-star Matthew Perry shot a 60-minute instructional video for the release of Microsoft's Windows 95. The next year she appeared in commercials for L'Oréal hair products. She also turned up in music videos, including Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' "Walls" in 1996 and Melissa Etheridge's "I Want to Be in Love" in 2001. In 2005 she appeared in a Heineken commercial.

  In 2002 she founded the film production company Plan B Entertainment with Brad Pitt and Brad Grey, CEO of Paramount Pictures. She and Grey withdrew in 2005. In 2008 she and producer Kristin Hahn formed Echo Films.

  She also tried directing. In 2006 she made the short film Room 10, set in a hospital emergency room and starring Robin Wright and Kris Kristofferson. It was part of Glamour's Reel Moments film series. She said that actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who directed a short film that year, inspired her to try.

  Working under a contract with Elizabeth Arden, Inc., she spent over a year on her first perfume, released in July 2010. Plans called for the name "Lolavie by Jennifer Aniston", but it became simply "Jennifer Aniston" to avoid confusion with a similarly named perfume. A second scent, J, followed in 2014. Several more came out through 2020, including Near Dusk, Beachscape and Solstice Bloom. In 2021 she launched the LolaVie haircare company.

  Since 2007 she has worked in a publicity campaign for the drink SmartWater. On the 7th of March 2011 she released a YouTube video for the brand, Jennifer Aniston Goes Viral, which tripled online interest in the product within 24 hours. In 2012 she co-founded the hair care brand Living Proof and became its spokeswoman, leaving when Unilever bought the company in 2016.

  In January 2013 she became spokeswoman for Aveeno Skincare, for which she is paid "eight figures". She became the new face of the airline Emirates in 2015, reportedly with success. In 2016 she appeared in a Shire campaign raising awareness about chronic dry eye.

  Her charity work is long-running. She has appeared in television commercials for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital and hosted the September 2008 Stand Up to Cancer show. For the "It Can't Wait" campaign to free Burma, she directed and starred in a video. She supports Friends of El Faro, which raises money for Casa Hogar Sion, an orphanage in Tijuana, Mexico.

  On the 14th of April 2007 GLAAD gave her its Vanguard Award for helping increase visibility and understanding of the LGBT community. In 2013 she became the Entertainment Industry Foundation ambassador for the Saks Fifth Avenue Key to the Cure campaign, which funds the EIF Women's Cancer Research Fund.

  After Haiti's earthquake she donated $500,000 to Doctors Without Borders, Partners in Health and AmeriCares, and she joined the Hope for Haiti Now telethon. Honored by SmartWater in 2016 for her work with St. Jude's, she told InStyle, "It's something that makes my heart smile." In 2017 she gave $500,000 to the Red Cross and another $500,000 to the Ricky Martin Foundation to help victims of hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria.

  5455

• 8. Image and Private Life

  ›

  The media nicknamed her "America's sweetheart" while Friends was on the air. In 2019 Rachel Simon of NBCNews.com wrote that Aniston had filled the role of the nation's most beloved celebrity for nearly two and a half decades. In 2005 she became the first GQ Woman of the Year. She topped People magazine's Most Beautiful Women ranking in 2004 and 2016, and its Best Dressed List in 2006. In 2011 readers of Men's Health voted her the Sexiest Woman of All Time.

  Forbes has placed her on its Top Earning Actresses list every year since 2001, a run of 15 years. It estimated her net worth at $110 million in 2007 and $200 million in 2017, and listed her 2018 earnings as $19.5 million. She topped its Celebrity 100 list in 2003 and ranked third on its 2013 list of the 100 Most Powerful Actresses in Hollywood. On the 22nd of February 2012 she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6270 Hollywood Boulevard.

  In July 2016, amid media speculation about whether she was pregnant, she wrote an essay for The Huffington Post condemning the "objectification and scrutiny we put women through". She declared, "We don't need to be married or mothers to be complete." Many celebrities supported the piece, and the media covered it widely.

  On the 15th of October 2019 she joined Instagram after years of avoiding social media. Her first picture, of the planned Friends reunion, overloaded the app, and for hours the follow button stopped working. She reached one million followers in five hours and sixteen minutes, a Guinness World Record.

  In 2014 she became a practitioner of Buddhism, and she also practices Hatha yoga and Budokan karate. She spoke that year of her Transcendental Meditation practice. The next year she said dyslexia had affected her education and self-esteem. After being diagnosed in her twenties, she said, "I felt like all of my childhood trauma-dies, tragedies, dramas were explained."

  Aniston has no children. In a November 2022 interview for the final print issue of Allure, she said she had undergone in vitro fertilization in her thirties and forties without a pregnancy. "It was really hard," she said. In 2023 she mentioned that Adam Sandler's family sends her flowers every Mother's Day.

  She met Brad Pitt in 1998, and after two years of dating they married on the 29th of July 2000, at a lavish wedding in Malibu, California. They announced their separation on the 7th of January 2005, and the divorce was finalized on the 2nd of October. News media speculated that Pitt had been unfaithful with his Mr. & Mrs. Smith co-star Angelina Jolie, and "Team Aniston" and "Team Jolie" T-shirts appeared across the country. In 2015 Aniston said, "Nobody did anything wrong."

  The divorce led her to reach out to her mother, Nancy, from whom she had been estranged for nearly a decade. Nancy had discussed her daughter on a television show and written a memoir, From Mother and Daughter to Friends, in 1999. In 2006 Aniston said she was devastated by the death of her longtime therapist, who had helped ease the separation.

  Her relationship with actor and screenwriter Justin Theroux began in May 2011. The following January they bought a Bel Air home for roughly $22 million. They became engaged on the 10th of August 2012 and held a wedding ceremony on the 5th of August 2015 at their estate. They separated at the end of 2017.

  Since July 2025, Aniston has been in a relationship with wellness coach Jim Curtis.

  1785