Aniston: 'Break-Up' Was Therapeutic
Jennifer Aniston has been very busy on the big screen lately. The A-list actress has released no less than four films in the past six months. And her latest movie teams her with Vince Vaughn for the falling out of love story, "The Break-Up."
Aniston stopped by The Early Show to talk with Hannah Storm about the new movie, and how it was actually therapeutic in dealing with her own very well-publicized split with Brad Pitt.
Aniston says the film deals with real, relatable breakup issues. "I mean the amount of people that sort of have come up to me and just said 'I had that fight.' or 'Thank God we saw this movie. It made us realize how silly our fights are.' You know," she said.
The film starts with a scene at a baseball game, and then we fast-forward two years later, and Aniston and Vaughn's characters are living together but not necessarily happily ever after.
"At that point of the movie, I think we're sort of at that place where, you know, it's gotten kind of a little bit of complacency, and you know, little slightly lazy on both of their parts and they've just gotten into bad habits," Aniston said. "That's how it starts. Then one thing — but it was a buildup of so many arguments that that one just was the straw that broke the camel's back."
Vince Vaughn, who not only starred in the film but also wrote and produced it, has said he had Aniston in mind for the female lead, even though the two had never met.
"No. Had never met. Then with so many reasons over the last 10 years our lives, we should have met but just never did. And yeah, so I just lucked out," the actress said.
Aniston has said there was an instant connection to Vaughn and people have remarked that they have great on-screen chemistry. Aniston acknowledges her co-star is very accessible and easy to get to know.
"He is. Because you know, he's from Chicago," Aniston said. "He's just a good old, down-home, American boy. He's just, you know, he's kind. He loves his family. He knows how to have fun. And he has a balance of everything. And he's not caught up in the star thing. He's not on the same trip as most — some — celebrities can be on."
Asked about what it was like working in Chicago, Aniston says: "Oh, you couldn't ask for anything better … Just down-to-earth, wonderful people, who are just so kind and great. A great city. Really good food."
Aniston says she liked the pizza and fessed up that she loved Wiener Circle. "I don't know why anybody even allowed me to know what that was. Who would have thought I'd love a hot dog. I lived in New York City. Street hot dogs. That never impressed me. This thing blew me away," she told Storm.
"You know I read a thing in Entertainment Weekly where you said you didn't shoot this movie because people would go see it 'because it reflects what's happening in my private life. I want to be given a little more credit than that.' You're given a script called 'The Break-Up" and of course people want to read crazy things into it," Storm said.
"Right," Aniston replied. "But you know, you think the timing of everything. And I was just sort of — I thought to myself, 'Gosh, I don't know if this is the right thing to do.' And then I read it, and I couldn't — there was no choice but to do it."
She also says making the move was "really therapeutic."
"Because you're just, sort of — I mean just think that laughter is a real necessity in healing," she said. "And to go and make, you know, here's a story that's real, and these arguments that are real, and we get to sort of have fun winking at them, and then you know, you kind of just work through it. For me. You know. And I was able to bring something as an actor that I maybe wouldn't have been able to bring to it years, months before had I not walked through. So I found it a real way to contribute as opposed to sit there, and, you know … fester, yeah. All of that.
"You know, you got lemons, make lemonade."