Jennifer Aniston was forced to lose weight before role in 'Friends'
September 19, 2019
Celebrated actress Jennifer Aniston, who shot to fame more than two decades ago, was forced to lose her weight before being cast as Rachel Green in all-time favourite TV show, Friends.
The information was revealed in Generation Friends: An Inside Look at the Show That Defined a Television Era, a new book authored by Saul Austerlitz to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the hit series, which originally aired in 1994.
Austerlitz, the author, said in his book Aniston was told that she had to slim herself down significantly in order to portray Rachel's character, being forced "to lose 30 pounds [almost 14 kilogrammes] if she wanted to stay in Hollywood".
Though "hardly fat", the Friends book author noted: "Los Angeles was a tough place to be an actress — it was a tough place to be a woman — and Jennifer Aniston's agent was reluctantly leveling with her.
"Everyone could see she was beautiful — but, at the show [that] she would one day become indelibly associated with, later made a point of noting, the camera added ten pounds," Austerlitz added. He also mentioned how numerous executives had told her that she was just “too fat.”
The Horrible Bosses star, who turned 50 in February, earlier discussed the issues and challenges she had to face to be and remain skinny if she wanted to be famous in Hollywood back in 1996, when Rolling Stone did a cover story on her.
In the interview back then, she had talked about how isolating and "disgusting" it was. "My agent gave it to me straight. Nicest thing he ever did... The disgusting thing of Hollywood — I wasn’t getting lots of jobs ’cause I was too heavy," she had said.
On turning 50 years old, she had said: “I don’t know what it is because I don’t feel any different. Things aren’t shutting down in any way. I feel physically incredible.
"So it’s weird that it’s all of a sudden getting telegraphed in a way that’s like, ‘You look amazing for your age.’ I think we need to establish some etiquette around that dialogue and verbiage.”
