Jennifer Aniston’s career may have been launched by Friends, but even after its success, instead of lavish gifts, she wanted more practical items.
The Emmy-winning actor, 56, is best known for playing spoiled rich girl Rachel Green on the beloved NBC sitcom, which aired 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004.
Speaking on a new episode of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, Aniston recalled asking NBC’s then-president, Warren Littlefield, for new appliances after the show’s success, separate from her contract negotiations.
“I said, ‘Will you please give me a washer and a dryer?’ And he wrote that down on a napkin,” she remembered.
“I just kept hearing that all these actors were getting like cars and getting like these things once they got hired,” she said. “And Friends had happened, and we were, I don’t know, at the upfronts for something, and I was like, ‘Where’s my — what are all these actors getting these treats for shows and stuff?’
“Treats! Actor treats,” she laughed, describing the items actors were receiving as “elaborate” and “very expensive gifts.”
“And [Littlefield] was like, ‘Well, what do you want?’ and I was like, ‘Really?’” Aniston recalled. After taking a moment to think, she told him she needed a washer and a dryer, which she confirmed he delivered on his promise to provide.
She also recounted how she eventually landed the role after several failed TV show pilots.
“I’d gone to the final stage [of auditions],” she said, adding that she later ran into Littlefield at a gas station in Los Angeles.
“I might have given him a headshot, or I said something like, ‘Please cast me. Please,’” she said.
Aniston co-led the seminal comedy alongside the late Matthew Perry, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc, about a close-knit group of friends living in New York City.
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In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar last week, The Morning Show star reflected fondly on her time working on Friends.
“It completely formed who I was. It was pure joy,” she said. “I looked forward to it every day. I couldn’t wait to get to work. I couldn’t wait to see those people. I couldn’t wait to read the scripts — we’d shoot the show every Friday night, and right after we wrapped, we’d find the new script for Monday morning in our dressing room. I was just as excited to find out what was going to happen as I’m sure the audience was.”
