JEN

From the Friends reunion to revisiting one of the strongest roles of her career in Morning Wars, it’s been quite the year for Jennifer Aniston. She chats to Kimberly Cutter about solitude, success and those Schwimmer rumours

- Kimberly Cutter

In hard times, Jennifer Aniston’s voice is like a tonic for the soul. A pandemic may be raging, the weather may be unpredictable, the polar bears may be perched on ever-dwindling icebergs, but when Aniston’s cheerful voice comes through my computer on Zoom, it’s like sunlight pouring from a cloud. All is well.“Hi!” says Aniston, who’s calling from Los Angeles and whom I’ve interviewed a number of times over the years. Her camera’s turned off today, but her face flashes before me anyway: the warm blue eyes, the wry smile, half-hidden by a sweep of lion-blonde hair. “It’s so good to talk to you!”

She’s in the middle of post-production for season two of Morning Wars, the hit AppleTV+ drama she stars in with Reese Witherspoon, Steve Carell, and Billy Crudup, streaming now. Morning Wars is some of the more addictive prestige television in recent years, and Aniston’s been unabashed in her praise for the show, which brought her out of post-Friends TV retirement in 2019, and has elicited one of the finest performances of her career. “It’s one of the most beautiful gems you could hope for,” she enthuses.