Jennifer Aniston ‘Terrified’ to Follow Gwyneth Paltrow and Scarlett Johansson’s Career Move

Jennifer Aniston wants to try something new with her career that Scarlett Johansson, Gwyneth Paltro and Sabrina Carpenter have already mastered.

In the November issue of Harper’s Bazaar magazine the 56-year-old actress revealed she wants to act on the Broadway stage in New York City.

It has always been a dream of hers ever since she attended the FAME school in Manhattan.

‘I haven’t done theatre yet because it terrifies me, but it’s the one thing I haven’t tried besides make an album, which I doubt I’ll do!’ she said. ‘But I grew up in New York and loved going to the theatre, so I think it’d be fun.’ 

In 2007, the Friends actress was set to produce and star in a musical about singing prisoners, and she even took voice lessons.

Entitled the Goree Girls, the movie focused on eight women held in Goree prison in 1940s Texas who became the first all-female country-and-western act in the US.

But the movie never came to be, sadly.

This is not the first time Aniston has talked about being in a play.

She already told Vanity Fair she wants to hit the stage. 

‘Growing up in New York City and seeing Annie, you just get swept into a fantasy world. I want to do that,’ she noted.

The Morning Show star grew up on the Upper West Side, attending the LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, famously known as the high school from the musical Fame.

‘As a young actor, you can forget that you are the one who’s earning income for the people around you,’ she said, crediting her manager Aleen Keshishian with helping her assert herself. 

‘She would say, “You’re the boss. You pay us. Don’t lose sight of your power in that. Don’t lose your voice.”‘

Aniston is currently producing a 9 to 5 remake, written by Diablo Cody. Ariana Grande has been rumored to have received an offer to star in the film.

The siren also said she is waiting for the ‘right material.’

‘I definitely want to do a Broadway play,’ Aniston shared. ‘But it’s about finding the time and the right material. I absolutely have to do a play on Broadway.’

Jennifer Lopez has also expressed interest in hitting the stage on Broadway; JLo made her comments while promoting her musical Kiss of The Spider Woman.

Also in her Harper’s Bazaar interview Jennifer said that her parents John Aniston and Nancy Dow had a nasty divorce.

And the future movie icon became a ‘pawn’ as the two were focused on getting even with each other during the especially contentious time.

The Along Came Polly actress pointed out that back then, parents did not really know how to look out for their kids during divorce as it was a different era.

The perennial ‘it’ girl of Hollywood was only nine years old at the time.

‘Their divorce was not amicable in any way, shape or form, and it was a time when there wasn’t a lot of awareness of how to behave for the sake of the kid,’ she recalled.

‘That was the least of [my parents’] worries – it was more, how could they hurt each other? And I was just a pawn.’ 

That led to her having to go to therapy; in another section of the interview Aniston noted that she has had a lot of therapy in her life and it is what has prevented her from going into ‘rages.’ 

The star also shared that mother and father were ‘ridiculously funny people’ and that she was ‘around a lot of laughter.’

Comedy became a source of comfort to her: initially to watch on television, and later as her acting specialism.

She enrolled in a dedicated performing-arts school in Manhattan, then auditioned liked crazy. Friends in 1994 then changed her life.

‘There’s something about the chemistry of the cast that made for a lightning-in-a-bottle moment,’ she reflected, ‘and that just happened to get caught on camera.’

Also in her HB interview she touched on ageism: ‘The societal idea of an expiration date just doesn’t exist anymore – it’s an old ideology.

‘We’re here and we’re more than half the population… and would any of you schmucks be here if it weren’t for us anyway?’

The Morning Show actress added, ‘The wisdom older women have to contribute is quite extraordinary, and it’s one of the areas where we’ve seen genuine progress in the film world.’ 

Aniston also revealed she endured a 20-year secret battle to have a baby.

The Friends icon talked about the false narrative that she didn’t want to become a mother because she’s a ‘selfish workaholic’.

She said: ‘They didn’t know my story, or what I’d been going through over the past 20 years to try to pursue a family, because I don’t go out there and tell them my medical woes. 

‘That’s not anybody’s business. But there comes a point when you can’t not hear it – the narrative about how I won’t have a baby, won’t have a family, because I’m selfish, a workaholic. 

‘It does affect me – I’m just a human being. We’re all human beings. That’s why I thought, ‘What the hell?’

However, the older Jennifer gets, the less she feels the need to ‘correct a false narrative’.

She explained: ‘The news cycle is so fast, it just goes away. 

‘Of course, there are times when I feel that sense of justice – when something has been said that isn’t true and I need to right the wrong. 

‘And then I think, do I really? My family knows my truth, my friends know my truth.’ 

Jennifer was married to actor Brad Pitt from 2000-2005. They split after he met actress Angelina Jolie on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

In 2022, Jennifer tragically revealed she had unsuccessfully tried IVF – and admitted she wished she had frozen her eggs years earlier.

‘It was a challenging road for me, the baby-making road,’ Jennifer said at the time.

‘My late 30s, 40s, I’d gone through really hard sh[*]t, and if it wasn’t for going through that, I would’ve never become who I was meant to be. I was trying to get pregnant.

‘All the years and years and years of speculation… It was really hard. I was going through IVF, drinking Chinese teas, you name it. I was throwing everything at it.

‘I would’ve given anything if someone had said to me, ‘Freeze your eggs. Do yourself a favor.’ You just don’t think it. So here I am today. The ship has sailed. But I have zero regrets.’

Jennifer was aged 35 when she split from Brad and previously said the suggestion he left her because she wouldn’t give him a child was an ‘absolute lie’. Brad went on to have has six children with Angelina. Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne. The eldest three are adopted and the youngest three are their biological children. 

They announced their split in 2016 after a now-infamous private plane incident in which Angelina accused Brad of being abusive toward her and the children. Brad is thought to now have ‘virtually no contact with them’.

Meanwhile, Jennifer went on to marry actor Justin Theroux in 2015 when she was aged 46. But theirs wasn’t to be a lasting romance. They divorced just three years later. 

The November issue of Harper’s Bazaar UK is on sale from October 9.