PHOTOSJennifer Aniston Was Told To Lose 30 Pounds Before Landing 'Friends' Role
Jennifer Aniston may be one of the best actresses of her generation, but the road to the top was not easy. As a young and upcoming actress in Hollywood in the late '80s and early '90s, she was starting at the bottom. One of her most career-defining moments was starring as spoiled rich girl-turned-poor Rachel Green on NBC's Friends. According to author Saul Austerlitz's new book, Generation Friends: An Inside Look at the Show That Defined a Television Era, the sitcom star was told to lose weight if she ever wanted to make it in Hollywood.
“She had to lose thirty pounds if she wanted to stay in Hollywood,” Saul wrote in the book, released in honor of Friends' 25th anniversary.
“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.”
Jennifer, now 50, booked the series when she was a mere 25-years-old in 1994. She received a call-back for the show and was told to wear a leotard to the audition. According to the novel, she said, “This’ll blow it for me,” to her agent. Her agent “responded seriously" to the instruction and told here to put it on.
“Aniston was hardly fat — everyone could see she was beautiful — but as the show she would one day become indelibly associated with later made a point of noting, the camera added ten pounds," Generation Friends read.
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Ultimately, the Morning Show actress lost the 30 pounds and booked the role of Rachel. However, her much-coveted role was hanging by a string as she had already committed herself to another pilot, Muddling Through for CBS.
NBC executives told the Friends producers to find another Rachel, but they were so in love with Jennifer's Rachel that she was forced to drop out of the sitcom if Muddling Through was greenlit by the end of pilot season.
As NBC predicted and as luck would have it, Muddling Through failed and Friends soared in the ratings, averaging almost 25 million viewers a week.
What are your thoughts on Jen being told to lose weight for Friends? Sound off in the comments below!
