Before I asked, she mentioned Justin Theroux, the star of the HBO series “The Leftovers” and her fiancé of more than two years, dropping him into a story about an unappreciated boyfriend who died years later of a brain tumor.
“He was my first love — five years we were together,” she said, referring to that boyfriend. “He would have been the one. But I was 25, and I was stupid. He must have sent me Justin to make up for it all.”
Ms. Aniston at the 2014 Variety Screening Series in Manhattan last month. Credit Monica Schipper/Getty Images for Variety I took note of her engagement ring, with its gargantuan diamond.
“It’s a rock, I know,” she said, sounding abashed but not really. “He rocked it up. It took me a while to get used to it. I’m not a diamond girl. I’m more Indian jewelry and stuff.” Her outfit wasn’t regal: bluejeans and a black, open-collared shirt.
I noted the din of speculation about why she and Mr. Theroux hadn’t tied the knot yet, and she said they’re still figuring out what kind of ceremony they want. She didn’t volunteer any more detail than necessary.
She bristles at the scrutiny that her private life gets in part because it underscores what she believes to be a double standard, one that came up the night before our interview, when she talked with an audience after a Midtown Manhattan screening of “Cake.”
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A woman noted that Ms. Aniston had repeatedly fielded the question of whether she was concerned about the likability of her “Cake” character. “That’s something men don’t get asked,” the woman said.
Ms. Aniston interjected before it was even clear the woman was done.
“They don’t get asked a lot of things,” she said, an unexpected bite in her voice.
During our interview, she elaborated: “You don’t see a lot of men getting asked: ‘Why aren’t you married? Why aren’t you having children?’ You don’t get the ‘Well, they seem to play the same thing over and over again,’ and some of them do.”
“We’re very much a sexist society,” she said. “Women are still not paid as much as men.” Just days earlier, the latest batch of Sony leaks revealed that Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence earned less for “American Hustle” than Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper and Jeremy Renner did.
“I’ve been up against that in negotiations myself,” she said, but declined to be more specific.
And she noted that men’s looks and aging aren’t dissected with the withering judgment directed at, say, Renée Zellweger, when she re-emerged in October with a seemingly changed face.
“There was a big whistle blown out on her, and it was unnecessary,” Ms. Aniston said. “Did she really look that different? Would she walk into a room and you’d say, ‘Who is that?’ That’s Renée, from here on down.” Ms. Aniston made a sweeping motion starting just below her eyes. “You can’t hide those pouty little lips.”
“I really do think you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t,” she added. “You either are too fat — ‘Oh my God, she’s gained weight, getting chubby, mid-40s spread!’ — or ‘She’s so skeletal, get some meat on her bones!’ I’ve been on too-thin lists. I’ve been on what-happened-to-her lists.”
She has in fact churned out movies at an unflagging pace. And while many have been romance-tinged, conventional Hollywood comedies, she has routinely built in exceptions. She was the femme fatale to Clive Owens’s patsy in “Derailed” (2005). She tucked herself into one of the director Nicole Holofcener’s idiosyncratic ensembles in “Friends With Money” (2006). Most notably, she played a Texas dime-store clerk trapped in a mirthless marriage in “The Good Girl,” a tiny 2002 drama for which she got rave reviews. But the movie quickly faded from memory.
She’s hoping for more from “Cake.”
When the screenplay for it circulated through Hollywood in 2013, she was one of many actresses to lobby for the lead, which she got only after it was turned down by someone else. Neither she nor Mr. Barnz would say whom.
Ms. Aniston with Jake Gyllenhaal in the 2002 independent film “The Good Girl.” Credit Dale Robinette/Fox Searchlight Mr. Barnz saw her “Cake” change of pace less as a physical transformation along the lines of Charlize Theron’s in “Monster” or Matthew McConaughey’s in “Dallas Buyers Club” than as a tonal departure like Mary Tyler Moore’s in “Ordinary People.”
Ms. Aniston’s commitment to the project was instant and complete, he said.
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story
“She attached herself with zero financing on board,” he said. “You’d think that actors would do that for projects that they love all the time, but it’s not true. Their representatives get nervous: If the project doesn’t then get financing, it’s a reflection of their client.”
To play the part, Ms. Aniston stopped exercising, gained weight, let her hair get dirty and didn’t wear makeup. All of that is actually less striking on screen than her sluggish, herky-jerky movements, a manifestation of the character’s ambiguously defined physical injuries and reliance on narcotics.
One resource for understanding her character’s experience was a close friend, Stacy Courtney, who has also worked as her stunt double. One of Courtney’s legs was mangled by a boat propeller years ago, and afterward she endured nearly a dozen surgeries and a grueling regimen of physical therapy.
In their conversations, Ms. Courtney said, the actress was “really breaking it down and wanting to know: What did it feel like to be that woman, to be in that kind of pain? She really wanted to be inside my body.”
The “Cake” shoot spanned only about a month. Ms. Aniston’s exertions to ensure that the movie is noticed — that nothing about it or her work is “hidden” — have lasted much longer.
And the nervousness that trailed her to Toronto is gone, replaced by pure resolve.
Fussing with her microphone at that Midtown Manhattan screening, she said: “I’m afraid that I’m not going to be loud enough.” So she spoke up. And everyone heard her just fine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/m...ething-to-prove-with-cake.html?_r=1&referrer=
“He was my first love — five years we were together,” she said, referring to that boyfriend. “He would have been the one. But I was 25, and I was stupid. He must have sent me Justin to make up for it all.”
Ms. Aniston at the 2014 Variety Screening Series in Manhattan last month. Credit Monica Schipper/Getty Images for Variety I took note of her engagement ring, with its gargantuan diamond.
“It’s a rock, I know,” she said, sounding abashed but not really. “He rocked it up. It took me a while to get used to it. I’m not a diamond girl. I’m more Indian jewelry and stuff.” Her outfit wasn’t regal: bluejeans and a black, open-collared shirt.
I noted the din of speculation about why she and Mr. Theroux hadn’t tied the knot yet, and she said they’re still figuring out what kind of ceremony they want. She didn’t volunteer any more detail than necessary.
She bristles at the scrutiny that her private life gets in part because it underscores what she believes to be a double standard, one that came up the night before our interview, when she talked with an audience after a Midtown Manhattan screening of “Cake.”
Continue reading the main story
A woman noted that Ms. Aniston had repeatedly fielded the question of whether she was concerned about the likability of her “Cake” character. “That’s something men don’t get asked,” the woman said.
Ms. Aniston interjected before it was even clear the woman was done.
“They don’t get asked a lot of things,” she said, an unexpected bite in her voice.
During our interview, she elaborated: “You don’t see a lot of men getting asked: ‘Why aren’t you married? Why aren’t you having children?’ You don’t get the ‘Well, they seem to play the same thing over and over again,’ and some of them do.”
“We’re very much a sexist society,” she said. “Women are still not paid as much as men.” Just days earlier, the latest batch of Sony leaks revealed that Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence earned less for “American Hustle” than Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper and Jeremy Renner did.
“I’ve been up against that in negotiations myself,” she said, but declined to be more specific.
And she noted that men’s looks and aging aren’t dissected with the withering judgment directed at, say, Renée Zellweger, when she re-emerged in October with a seemingly changed face.
“There was a big whistle blown out on her, and it was unnecessary,” Ms. Aniston said. “Did she really look that different? Would she walk into a room and you’d say, ‘Who is that?’ That’s Renée, from here on down.” Ms. Aniston made a sweeping motion starting just below her eyes. “You can’t hide those pouty little lips.”
“I really do think you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t,” she added. “You either are too fat — ‘Oh my God, she’s gained weight, getting chubby, mid-40s spread!’ — or ‘She’s so skeletal, get some meat on her bones!’ I’ve been on too-thin lists. I’ve been on what-happened-to-her lists.”
She has in fact churned out movies at an unflagging pace. And while many have been romance-tinged, conventional Hollywood comedies, she has routinely built in exceptions. She was the femme fatale to Clive Owens’s patsy in “Derailed” (2005). She tucked herself into one of the director Nicole Holofcener’s idiosyncratic ensembles in “Friends With Money” (2006). Most notably, she played a Texas dime-store clerk trapped in a mirthless marriage in “The Good Girl,” a tiny 2002 drama for which she got rave reviews. But the movie quickly faded from memory.
She’s hoping for more from “Cake.”
When the screenplay for it circulated through Hollywood in 2013, she was one of many actresses to lobby for the lead, which she got only after it was turned down by someone else. Neither she nor Mr. Barnz would say whom.
Ms. Aniston with Jake Gyllenhaal in the 2002 independent film “The Good Girl.” Credit Dale Robinette/Fox Searchlight Mr. Barnz saw her “Cake” change of pace less as a physical transformation along the lines of Charlize Theron’s in “Monster” or Matthew McConaughey’s in “Dallas Buyers Club” than as a tonal departure like Mary Tyler Moore’s in “Ordinary People.”
Ms. Aniston’s commitment to the project was instant and complete, he said.
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story
“She attached herself with zero financing on board,” he said. “You’d think that actors would do that for projects that they love all the time, but it’s not true. Their representatives get nervous: If the project doesn’t then get financing, it’s a reflection of their client.”
To play the part, Ms. Aniston stopped exercising, gained weight, let her hair get dirty and didn’t wear makeup. All of that is actually less striking on screen than her sluggish, herky-jerky movements, a manifestation of the character’s ambiguously defined physical injuries and reliance on narcotics.
One resource for understanding her character’s experience was a close friend, Stacy Courtney, who has also worked as her stunt double. One of Courtney’s legs was mangled by a boat propeller years ago, and afterward she endured nearly a dozen surgeries and a grueling regimen of physical therapy.
In their conversations, Ms. Courtney said, the actress was “really breaking it down and wanting to know: What did it feel like to be that woman, to be in that kind of pain? She really wanted to be inside my body.”
The “Cake” shoot spanned only about a month. Ms. Aniston’s exertions to ensure that the movie is noticed — that nothing about it or her work is “hidden” — have lasted much longer.
And the nervousness that trailed her to Toronto is gone, replaced by pure resolve.
Fussing with her microphone at that Midtown Manhattan screening, she said: “I’m afraid that I’m not going to be loud enough.” So she spoke up. And everyone heard her just fine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/m...ething-to-prove-with-cake.html?_r=1&referrer=
