Friends star Jennifer Aniston made a rare podcast appearance on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert show. According to Variety, the star of The Morning Show delved into some personal stories that had not been revealed before. Aniston talks about following in the footsteps of her father, John Aniston, and getting into the acting game. She explained, “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. [But] whatever drives you, if you find passion in something and you love it, go do it.”
Before getting the role on the cultural phenomenon that is Friends, Aniston was on a bevy of shows that never took off (as well as the cult horror classic Leprechaun). But one show that Aniston herself turned down was Saturday Night Live. When Shepard asked her why she walked away, Aniston replied, “I always thought I was such hot shit. The story of that is all very confusing.” She continued, “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. And I knew Sandler forever. 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.’ 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.”
Aniston revealed that she was motivated to impress her dad with her career. John Aniston was a cast member of Days of Our Lives for almost four decades, and she said she was “Always wanting to get Pop’s approval — it was the thing that drove me.” However, she rejects the label of “nepo baby.” Aniston expounded, “I mean, look at all the law firms. Blanky Blank Blanky and Blanky Blank. I mean, all right, isn’t that a version of it’s all in the family? It’s all in the family. 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.”
