How Friends star Jennifer Aniston turned £80 into a staggering £150million
WHEN Jennifer Aniston shelled out £80 for photos for her Friends audition, little did she know it would go on to earn her £150 MILLION.
But that is what the star, who became a household name as sexy Rachel Green, is now worth thanks to the seemingly never ending public thirst for the sitcom.
And her bank balance will be getting another boost after the cast announced they were reuniting for a much-hoped for special — bagging around £2 million each.
Jennifer and co-stars Matthew Perry, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc confirmed they will reunite for the one-off show by taking to Instagram and sharing a photo with the caption “it’s happening”.
To celebrate the TV reunion of the century it’s Friends week in The Sun this week — starting with Jennifer.
Last night her post had had nearly TEN MILLION likes and is on track to eclipse her first-ever Instagram photo last October.
The picture of a private reunion of the cast at her home with the words: “And now we’re Instagram FRIENDS too” got 15.8 million likes . . . and temporarily crashed the platform.
The impact of both messages proves that Friends is still the world’s favourite sitcom nearly 26 years after its first episode. .
Friends has also made its six main stars some of the wealthiest actors in history — who still earn an estimated £15m EACH every year just from reruns.
But Jennifer, 51, almost missed out on the life-changing role of Rachel. The wannabe actress had a string of low-paid jobs while trying to get her big break in Hollywood.
Jennifer said: “I worked at an ice cream place. And then, I waitressed for about two and a half years. All the while, I was auditioning . . . I couldn’t even get a commercial.
She had to borrow £80 from a pal for some professional photos before her audition. But just weeks before she bagged the role of Rachel, she was cast in another sitcom called Muddling Through.
She recalls: “I was doing Muddling Through and we only did six episodes and the network didn’t think it was going to get picked up so I started going on auditions for ‘second position’ as they call it.
“I read the Friends script and I have never had a reaction like that to a show. It was my contemporaries, it was New York City, it was funny, it was interesting, I’d never read anything like it. This guy named David Schwimmer and Courteney Cox were already cast.”
But her role in the other sitcom put her place in Friends in jeopardy. She says: “I had phone calls from girlfriends saying, ‘I’m auditioning for your part in ‘Friends’ and do you have any ideas.
“I was really surprised they were actually considering replacing me. But then, thank God, they didn’t find anyone and they just took the chance that ‘Muddling Through’ would fail after the two episodes the network picked it up for. Then it went away — poof! And ‘Friends’ went Boom!”
Astonishingly, Courteney Cox was originally lined up to play Rachel.
Jennifer says: “They wanted Court to play Rachel. Unbeknown to each other, I wanted to play Rachel and she wanted to play Monica. It worked out perfectly.”
And as the show soared in popularlity so did their salaries. For the first season the six stars earned £17,400 per episode and by the final season they were on a staggering £770,000 per episode — with the final episode in 2004 being watched by 52.5 million viewers in the US.
While Rachel’s on-off love affair with Ross (David Schwimmer) captivated viewers and ended happily ever after, Jennifer’s own love-life has not been so successful.
When she married Brad Pitt in 2000 they were seen as Hollywood’s golden couple. But they were divorced five years later after he dumped for Angelina Jolie.
After being romantically linked with Gerard Butler — after meeting on 2010 movie The Bounty Hunter — as well as musician John Mayer and Vince Vaughn, Jennifer went on to marry actor Justin Theroux in 2015. But they split two years later.
Jennifer sent the rumour mill into overdrive when she and Brad had a heart- warming reunion at the 2020 Screen Actors Guild Awards last month — with fans hoping they had rekindled their romance.
While she is currently single, she has always maintained she wanted children one day.
And last month she confirmed she sees children running around in the future in a “joyous snapshot” in her mind’s eye.
She said: “But it’s more like a little screenshot in my brain, where I hear the ocean, I see the ocean, I hear laughter, I see kids running, I hear ice in a glass, I smell food being cooked”.
Since Friends, Jennifer has gone on to become one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars with a string of movie hits including, Marley And Me, Horrible Bosses, We’re The Millers and Just Go With It.
She now commands up to £8 million per film and feels her age hasn’t hindered her career.
She says: “I feel like I’ve worked more since I turned 40 than I ever did and I don’t see it slowing down any time soon.”
While she hasn’t been lucky in love, there’s no denying still has sex appeal — appearing on the cover of InStyle magazine this month wearing hot pants and thigh-high boots.
She said: “Well it’s hard work, you know, you work out, you just take care of yourself and, you know, you exercise, you eat right, you sleep, you’re happy. Happiness is the big key.”
But there is one part of her body she finds hardest to keep in check admitting: “My butt! It just has a tendency to go right and left and I’d like it to go up!”
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And she had no plans to put the brakes on her work soon.
She added: “Oh I’m just starting. I mean I wouldn’t know where to begin.
"There’s so much. My life is a happy life. It’s a choice.”
Bit of a do about that hair
JENNIFER ANISTON sparked the haircut of the Nineties.
Her “Rachel cut” made headlines and was copied around the world.
But to Jennifer the do was just . . . a do.
Given a choice on whether she’d have her 1995 layered hairstyle for the rest of her life – or shave her locks completely off – the star has said that’s a no-brainer.
Speaking about one of the most iconic celebrity haircuts of all time she said: “Shave my hair once . . . or have the Rachel haircut for the rest of my life?
“Shave my hair, definitely.
“I mean a haircut! It’s sort of silly yet flattering at the same time.
"But no, I don’t think anybody expects that.”
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