Jennifer Aniston says she struggled to escape ‘Rachel from Friends’ and doubted her acting skills

Jennifer Aniston has revealed she struggled to escape being “Rachel from Friends” and it even led to her doubting her acting skills.

Jennifer Aniston has revealed she struggled to escape being “Rachel from Friends” for years and it even led to her doubting her skills as an actress.

During a roundtable talk with fellow stars such as Reese Witherspoon and Helena Bonham Carter, Aniston got very honest about playing Rachel in the popular sitcom, The Sun reports.

The women were asked if they’d ever struggled with wanting to be seen in ways that the industry didn’t want to see them, and Aniston was quick to speak up.

“Oh my God, yes,” she replied. “You just exhaust yourself. I mean, I could not get Rachel Green off of my back for the life of me. I could not escape ‘Rachel from Friends’, and it’s on all the time and you’re like, ‘Stop playing that f***ing show!’”

Jennifer Aniston took part in a Hollywood Reporter roundtable with a number of other stars.

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She continued: “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.

“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.”

She added during the chat with The Hollywood Reporter: “So, I just fought with myself and who I was in this industry forever, and it was constantly about trying to prove that I was more than that person.

“But there is such a freedom in getting older because you just stop giving a crap,” she laughed.

“Once you play comedy, they don’t think you can do the drama; and if you’re only seen as a dramatic actor, they don’t think you can do comedy.

“They forget that we’re actors and we actually have it all in there. It’s just about finding it and accessing it and getting the material.”

The Friends cast still reportedly pocket $20 million each per year from the show.

Aniston is still good friends with her former co-stars Courteney Cox and Lisa Kudrow, as well as Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer.

The six actors starred on the show for 10 seasons, and fans were left devastated when it came to an end in 2004.

However, the cast are coming together for a reunion special which will be filmed in August, following delays due to the global coronavirus pandemic.

Marta Kauffman, who co-created Friends with David Crane, told The Wrap: “We are hoping to be able to shoot in August, if all is well and there is no early second wave and the studio is open.

“If everything is in place and we understand all the protocols and we can still make a good show, we’ll be shooting it some time, mid-to-late August.”

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission