Jennifer Aniston’s most famous role is Rachel Green, but that doesn’t mean she keeps wanting to hearing about it.
The actress made this clear during a virtual discussion for The Hollywood Reporter’s Drama Actress Roundtable .
In it, she revealed she’s tired of being known as Rachel from Friends and that the character even it difficult for her to land roles.
This is Rachel Green.
I mean, OF COURSE, YOU KNOW WHO IT IS. Rachel Green is one of the most iconic characters on television, period.
It’s the role that helped transform Jennifer Aniston — and her iconic “Rachel” haircut — into a star.
Aniston played the iconic character for 10 years, from 1994 to 2004.
While it’s unlikely that she will ever reprise the role again, she will be part of the highly-anticipated Friends reunion on HBO Max.
Sadly, though, it’s currently postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The reunion will likely get a fall premiere date, *Variety* reported last month.
In the meantime, Friends fans can enjoy the virtual conversation Jen had with her former costar, Lisa Kudrow.
It was obviously amazing.
This was for *Variety’s Variety Studio: Actor on Actors* where the co-stars reminisced about their time on the show.
Jen said that while she was hanging out with Courteney Cox one time, they stumbled upon the show’s bloopers.
“And we sat there at the computer like two nerds watching these bloopers laughing at ourselves,” Aniston said.
Kudrow could relate to spending her time watching the show’s old clips.
“I’ve done it, too … I’ve done that, hours watching bloopers.”
“Here’s what I love, is when I watch an episode, I’ll usually remember where we broke during the scene,” Aniston said.
“You and I would always get into these fits of laughter because you had this wonderful ability to — you were about to hit your punchline, and you would do this adorable thing where you would break.”
She continued:
“You would say the punchline, and you would always turn to the audience and say, ‘I’m sorry, it’s really funny.'”
While chatting, both said that they’re both excited to finally film the HBO Max’s Friends reunion.
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“I can’t wait to do that,” Kudrow said.
“I really can’t wait to do that. Yeah, we don’t know everything about it, we need to stay. I think we’re meant to be surprised by some things as well.”
Jennifer then spilled some deets on it: “We know it’s not scripted, that we know.”
“Yeah, no. I will not be Phoebe,” Kudrow added.
“I will not be Rachel, although I kind of am. Well, we’re all sort of little fragments of them. Not really. But yeah,” Aniston said.
Speaking of being Rachel, Aniston recently revealed something surprising about her former character.
This was during the virtual discussion on The Hollywood Reporter’s Drama Actress Roundtable , where she was joined by Janelle Monáe, Zendaya, Reese Witherspoon, Helena Bonham Carter, and Rose Byrne.
“You just exhaust yourself,” Aniston said about being typecast as Rachel.
“I mean, I could not get Rachel Green off of my back for the life of me. I could not escape ‘Rachel from Friends,'” she added.
“And it’s on all the time and you’re like, ‘Stop playing that [expletive] show!’ “
She then revealed that she was able to finally shed a bit of Rachel when she landed the leading role in the 2002 film, The Good Girl .
“The Good Girl was the first time I got to really shed whatever the Rachel character was, and to be able to disappear into someone who wasn’t.”
“That was such a relief to me. But I remember the panic that set over me, thinking, ‘Oh God, I don’t know if I can do this. Maybe they’re right,’ ” she recalled.
“Maybe everybody else is seeing something I’m not seeing, which is you are only that girl in the New York apartment with the purple walls,'” Aniston continued.
“So, I was almost doing it for myself just to see if I could do something other than that. And it was terrifying because you’re doing it in front of the world,” she admitted.
“I just fought with myself and who I was in this industry forever.”
“And it was constantly about trying to prove that I was more than that person. But there is such a freedom in getting older because you just stop giving a crap,” Aniston added.
