For Jennifer Aniston, Apple TV+ flagship series The Morning Show was always about more than just an acting role. And that’s not just because she was one of the producers. “That show was 20 years of therapy wrapped into 10 episodes,” she told the LA Times in a new interview. “There were times when I would read a scene and feel like a whole manhole cover was taken off my back.”
‘The Morning Show’ Was ‘Cathartic,’ For Jennifer Aniston
Playing host Alex Levy on The Morning Show was “cathartic,” said Ms. Aniston. It was “interesting for me to look at how I always have tried to normalize being fine and ‘everything’s great, you know, this is all normal,’ and then there are moments when you have your private breakdown,” she added. “To actually look at it from an actor brain observing it and acknowledging it, I had to look at it as opposed to pretending it doesn’t exist.”
The actor said “there have been moments,” similar to one depicted in episode two of the series, in which her character has a meltdown as she is meant to step out a limo at an awards ceremony being held in her honor. Her own did not reach “that level of hysteria,” but there were “moments of ‘I don’t want to f—ing go here,’ ‘I don’t want to walk out onto the carpet,’ ‘I don’t want to be seen,’ ‘I don’t want to be looked at and everyone’s going to be talking about me and judging me’ … that’s real,” she said. “I just loved being able to walk into it and lean into it and not be ashamed of it.”
Shooting for the second season of The Morning Show was halted in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It has allowed the writers, producers, and actors to incorporate the topic into the Apple TV+ flagship.