Jennifer Aniston: Leaving ‘Friends’ Character Rachel For Movie Roles Was ‘Terrifying’

After playing Rachel Green on “Friends” for 10 years, actress Jennifer Aniston had trouble getting casting directors to believe she could play anyone else. The actress recently opened up about struggling with typecasting after the NBC comedy ended.

“I could not get Rachel Green off of my back for the life of me,” Aniston told the Hollywood Reporter. “I could not escape ‘Rachel from Friends’ and it's on all the time and you're like, ‘Stop playing that [expletive] show!’”

The actress, who was participating in THR’s drama actress roundtable laughed and explained that “The Good Girl,” the 2002 dramedy with Jake Gyllenhaal, let her break free from the sitcom. However, she doubted her abilities after spending so long on “Friends.”

“‘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,” she recalled. “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. 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.’ 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.”

Though “Friends” is still beloved in 2020, it seems safe to say that Aniston can be seen as more than Ross Gellar’s true love at this point. She was participating in the roundtable due to the Emmy buzz surrounding her role on “The Morning Show.” The star, who also executive produces the Apple TV+ drama with Reese Witherspoon, plays a veteran morning show journalist who realizes she has been complicit in letting her co-anchor’s harassment and misogyny go unchecked.

Aniston already won the Screen Actors Guild Award for best actress in a drama and she was nominated in the same category at the Golden Globes. The Television Academy is expected to put her up in the same category for the Primetime Emmy Awards.