The Sweet Life

Having Gracefully Navigated the Pitfalls of Fame, Jennifer Aniston Gets Frank About Love, Marriage and Why Motherhood Isn’t the Only Route to Happiness

- Kimberly Cutter

Jennifer Aniston likes working from home, and once you see her home, it’s not hard to guess why. Up, up, up the steep, windy roads of Los Angeles you go, through discreet gates that open as if by magic, and into a modernist compound. Jennifer stands waiting in the massive front doorway – tiny, tanned and smiling. ‘Hi!’ she says, ushering me inside along with her three boisterous dogs.

At 47, Jennifer has the wry humour of someone who finds life alternatingly fascinating and baffling. Her feet are bare; her hair is tawny, her blue eyes twinkling. ‘Come on in,’ she says, guiding me through the house – a charcoal-toned hugeness of glass and air with dark wood floors and endless views out over the city. The art is big and modern, the furniture long and low, with a few well-chosen statement pieces: a Chagall here, a massive amethyst crystal there, a pair of oversized ebony hands framing the fireplace. ‘I get very involved with doing my houses,’ says Jennifer, who bought the place with her then-boyfriend, Justin Theroux, in 2012, and was married to him here last year. ‘Luckily, I worked with an architect who didn’t mind.’

People tend not to mind when it comes to Jennifer Aniston. In fact, most of us can’t get enough of her, even though it’s been 22 years since she first leaped into our living rooms as the spoiled-but lovable Rachel Green on Friends. ‘People just love her,’ says Jennifer’s best friend and producing partner, Kristin Hahn, who recently produced the indie dramas Cake and The Yellow Birds with Jennifer. ‘It’s a blessing and a curse.’