Jennifer Aniston has reflected on turning down a role on Saturday Night Live because she “thought I was such hot shit”.
The actor looked back at the decision during a recent appearance on the Armchair Expert podcast, where she discussed her breaking into the industry and the spell before she found global fame on Friends.
During the interview, she explained how her father – fellow actor John Aniston, who starred in Days Of Our Lives for almost 40 years – warned her not to get into the film and television industry, particularly due to the amount of rejection actors regularly receive.
“My dad was telling me, ‘Please don’t do this, you’re just going to suffer rejection. Just go get a job. Like, get a real job.’ All the cliché things,” Aniston recalled. “[But] whatever drives you, if you find passion in something and you love it, go do it.”
Despite his doubts, Jennifer went on to pursue acting anyway, and told Vanity Fair earlier this year that she did so as she was “always wanting to get Pop’s approval”.
Before becoming a household name by landing the role of Rachel Green on Friends in 1994, she was offered an opportunity to work on the hit NBC comedy show Saturday Night Live, but turned it down due to feeling it was too “male dominated”.
“I always thought I was such hot shit. The story of that is all very confusing,” she said when asked why she didn’t accept the offer for SNL. “Honestly, today I’d have to ask Lorne, because I remember, I was in New York City, and I had a meeting with Lorne Michaels, and I ran into [Adam] Sandler and [David] Spade in the room right outside.”
“I don’t know why I had this self-righteous attitude of ‘I don’t know if women are treated the way they should be treated on this show. It’s a very male-dominated [show], I would love to be here if it was in the Gilda Radner day’,” she added.
“I mean, this is the brain that semi-remembers things that are back that far. Something like that. I can’t remember, but I just remember Friends then happened.”
Also in the interview, the Just Go With It star explained that while she followed in her father’s footsteps to become an actor, she has always rejected the “nepo baby” label.
“I mean, look at all the law firms. Blanky Blank Blanky and Blanky Blank. I mean, isn’t that a version of it’s all in the family? It’s all in the family,” Aniston shared. “So, maybe you got into a door because you’re so-and-so’s kid, but if you suck, guess what? You’re not going to continue to do it.”
Aniston remained as one of the main characters on Friends between September 1994 and May 2004. In 2023, she joined her castmates in sharing moving tributes to Matthew Perry, who died at the age of 54. His cause of death was attributed to the acute effects of ketamine, with drowning and coronary artery disease listed as other factors.
She posted a lengthy note at the time, saying that his loss had “cut deep” and had caused an “insane wave of emotions that I’ve never experienced before”.
“We all experience loss at some point in our lives. Loss of life or loss of love. Being able to really SIT in this grief allows you to feel the moments of joy and gratitude for having loved someone that deep,” she wrote
Earlier this summer, she then opened up about how she and her fellow co-stars including Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer tried to help Perry over the years during his struggles with addiction, and felt a sense of loss for him long before his death.
“We did everything we could when we could, but it almost felt like we’d been mourning Matthew for a long time because his battle with that disease was a really hard one for him to fight,” she said. “As hard as it was for all of us and for the fans, there’s a part of me that thinks this is better. I’m glad he’s out of that pain.”
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.