In the new movie
Cake, Jennifer Aniston plays a woman
suffering from chronic, debilitating pain. Her pain is both emotional
and physical — her anger is so uncontrollable that she has been kicked
out of her chronic pain support group. "You really do not know what
happened to this woman," Aniston tells NPR's Rachel Martin. "As the
story unfolds you slowly start to discover bits of information as to
what happened and why she is in this state."
Aniston says
that's not the kind of narrative that generally gets approved in
Hollywood, and so she's glad this was an independent film. "It's a
little bit more risky, but I think the audiences have really been
appreciating it," she says.
Aniston talks with Martin about her new film, about the time she spent working on
Friends, and about her hopes for the future.
On how she played a character who is experiencing pain
It
was a lot of studying the back, the leg, the neck. Pretty much every
single part of her body was hurt, injured. And you really do start to
manifest odd little, you know, cricks and ... pinches in your neck and
lower back pain. ... Every week I would have some form of body work,
just to make sure, you know, my body didn't kind of lock into any of
that permanently....
Talking to women, or men, who are
suffering from chronic pain on a daily basis — it is so unimaginable. I
mean, I was so grateful for my body at the end of the day.
On whether she is at a point in her career where she can pick her projects.
Well,
you can and you can't. The truth is: you can become established in a
certain category, and I think you are given, you know, offers and
opportunities based on how the industry sees you fitting into that —
that job. And sometimes you have to kind of take the reins yourself or
take a project on and get it made independently so that you can do that
work [that] not necessarily another director or studio would see you,
you know, fit for. It is, I've said, such a catch-22. It's like, "I know
I can do this, you just have to give me the opportunity" and then what
comes back is: "Well, we can't give you the opportunity because we've
never seen you do this."
On the time she spent on the sitcom Friends
It
was awesome. It was the greatest 10 years. The greatest people to work
with every day, the greatest crew, killer writers. Funny. Beloved by
people. Not only were we having so much fun ourselves, but the amount of
love that people felt for that show, still feel for that show, we
tapped into something. I don't know what the hell, but it was something,
really kind of struck a nerve that continues to sort of be hit. And I
think that's so special to be a part of something like that.
On the way she thinks about the future
I
kind of live in the moment. And I don't have a five-year-plan and I
don't have, "OK, so what we're going to do now is we're going to go for a
character that takes you into a real dark territory ..." It's not a
strategy.
On whether she's seeking out dramatic roles
I
see what comes to me. I mean, I'd love to play more dramatic roles but I
love comedic roles. I love just good material. But honestly, after
doing
Cake, I feel like I scratched an itch that's been needing
to be scratched and I want very much to play really wonderful
characters and telling a story, exposing a human experience, comedy or
drama or both infused. I mean I think comedy and drama go hand in hand.
You know, life isn't one or the other.
Source:http://www.npr.org/2015/01/04/374580312/i-was-so-grateful-for-my-body-jennifer-aniston-on-portraying-chronic-pain