Part of Friends featuring Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer, and Matthew Perry.
Rise to Fame
Four failed TV shows in, Jennifer Aniston was ready to quit acting. NBC executive Warren Littlefield talked her out of it, then put her in Friends. She'd originally been asked to audition for Monica but refused, pushed for Rachel Green instead. That worked out: Rachel became the show's breakout character, the 'Rachel' haircut a certified cultural event, and Aniston the first cast member to outshine her co-stars in the public eye. The Emmy in 2002 was almost beside the point.
In the Spotlight
Her film career after Friends was fine. Romantic comedies, a few misses, nothing that matched the show's pull. The Morning Show on Apple TV+ (2019) changed the math: she plays a TV anchor navigating a #MeToo reckoning, won a SAG Award for it in 2020, and the show is heading into its fifth season. She's producing a 9 to 5 reimagining and has a body-swap comedy with Julia Roberts lined up. The era of Aniston as movie star has quietly become the era of Aniston as producer.
Side Notes
She found out she had dyslexia during a routine eye exam in her twenties, which reframed years of struggling she hadn't been able to explain. Her father is soap opera actor John Aniston, who spent decades on Days of Our Lives, and she reportedly had a strained relationship with her mother for years. The public spent years treating her childlessness as a choice or a wound to analyze. In 2022 she corrected the record: she'd tried IVF for nearly 20 years. The narrative had nothing to do with reality.