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Jennifer Aniston has come a long way from playing the ditzy, clueless Rachel Green in Friends. She’s grown up through the 10 seasons of the seminal sitcom and the two decades after that. But she’s also ensured that the women around her grow along with her too. The prime example of that is Reese Witherspoon, who played her younger, rebellious sister Jill in the show. “I’d never think my baby sister from Friends would become my producing partner-in-crime in one of the greatest shows that I’ve been a part of,” Jennifer tells SCREEN in an exclusive interview.
Reese and Jennifer joined forces six years ago to co-produce and star in The Morning Show, an Emmy-nominated newsroom drama on Apple TV. Four seasons later, they’re still going strong. “I love that we’ve been able to do this together because we’ve grown up together. There was a time when women wouldn’t be invited to the table. It would be considered cute and adorable that a woman would want to be the producer of a show,” recalls Jennifer.
With her enduring partnership with Reese, Jennifer aspires to demonstrate to young women how to “just go for the gold” and “not take no for an answer.” Their Morning Show co-star Nicole Beharie, who joins the cast of season 4 as Chris Hunter, vouches for Jennifer and Reese’s prowess over not only acting, but also producing. “Even though things are moving fast, there’s enough space to find your footing. There’s also a lot of forgiveness and humour that these women bring to the workspace,” she says.
Nestor Carbonell, who’s been essaying the weather reporter-turned-news anchor Yanko since season 1, loves to see a new actor walk into the set every time. “It could be intimidating to be surrounded by those actors. But I love to see a new actor walk into the set and immediately see their shoulders relax because the environment is so friendly and creative. A lot of that has to do with the tone Jennifer and Reese create. You can collaborate, spitball, and mess up, and it’s alright. It continues to be a dream,” he adds.
Jennifer Aniston gives full credit to her “fantastic” producing team and claims that the show just “beautifully” runs itself now. “There are some areas where I don’t excel, but Reese does. There’s just a beautiful collaboration. It feels like we never left although there’s a long period of time between two seasons,” says Jennifer. She can’t believe how past hit shows like ER pulled off hour-long episodes continuously for 15 seasons across less than 15 years. Even Friends had to wrap up within 10 seasons and 10 years, even though each episode lasted only a little over 20 minutes. She adds The Morning Show is doing fairly well in comparison: “We’re now in a groove obviously because it’s been four seasons, but also 900 years!”
A lot of the freshness in The Morning Show has to do with its writers room determined to keep up with the times as urgently as possible and ensure that they pretty much operate like a buzzing newsroom, ever since the inaugural season. “It’s probably the only show I’ve been a part of that is so current. We didn’t intend it to be a show that was this way, but once the Me Too movement happened, we couldn’t avoid incorporating that issue into our script, even though half of the script had already been written.”
Season 2 captured the Covid pandemic, season 3 depicted tech control, and now, season 4 encapsulates the most recent threats to journalism like Artificial Intelligence and political polarity. “Our writers kept writing, and it became very topical to what was going on in the world. Art imitating life, life imitating art. It’s very exciting because we wonder if our writers saw in their crystal ball again and if this is actually going to happen. And then sure enough, a lot of times, they indeed happen,” she says, referencing to tech bros taking over even rocket launches.
The political and the personal often merge in The Morning Show. Season 4, in that sense, is also about seeking the truth in an increasingly manipulated and malleable world. “If you’re scrolling, there’s the almighty algorithm. Even if you spend a few seconds on something trying to understand it, you’ll get more of the same. No wonder what one person believes is completely different from what another would believe. It’s hard to know where exactly the truth lies,” underlines Jennifer.
But The Morning Show season 4 is also forward-thinking in terms of its depiction of women in leadership positions. But that ideal scenario is laced with caution. “It also pulls the curtain on the corporate conflicts that go on about maintaining journalistic integrity and keeping their jobs and not getting fired,” says Jennifer, whose character Alex Levy is now in a leadership position at the UBN after its merger. “Be careful of what you wish for. Corruption doesn’t know any gender. Women are a little more in tune with emotions and aren’t really that cutthroat. So the lot of hard decisions that have to be made, are really hard,” she adds.
With the relentless hurdles in the professional life of Alex Levy cropping up, could her personal life be far behind? Enter: Jeremy Irons, who plays her father in the show. “I was so nervous to meet the all mighty Jeremy Irons. And boy, he was so disarming and lovely. He’s like a big kid, who’s so playful. He’s an actor’s actor who’d finish a take and go, ‘How was it? Should we do another?’ He’s just divine,” says Jennifer. However, their onscreen equation isn’t as smooth or even cordial. Her dad has been an absentee father, which also informs her own relationship with her daughter Lizzy.
“Her model for parenting was a workaholic who expected a lot from his child. So, she’s unexpectedly passed that down,” points out showrunner Charlotte Stoudt. “The estrangement with her daughter mirrors the estrangement with her father. It’s an armour to protect yourself against the deep feelings of abandonment by her father. So, it’s a cyclical thing that happens in that relationship, which is very painful. It was great Charlotte set up this character as a mountain she has to climb to get some sort of closure to complicated relationship,” adds Mimi Leder, the lead director.
Despite the uphill climb, as an actor, Jennifer Aniston was glad that Alex’s father entered the picture this season, since it finally explains some of her choices over the years. “I was so excited that we had Alex’s father this season just so that we could peel back and understand what made Alex Alex. Why is she such a loner? Why are her relationships not working? Why is she such a workaholic?,” says Jennifer. But like every other thread in the show, Alex’s dynamic with her father also stemmed from a larger, political parallel.
“When we began the writers room for season 4, the Presidential matchup was between these two older gentlemen who were back on the ticket,” says Charlotte, referring to Donald Trump vs Joe Biden. “Why are the options two daddies? Why do we still need daddy to tell us what to do? That’s just where America is. So, we thought to make that question both political and personal. We wanted to know more about the parents, especially Alex’s father because we don’t know much about her parents. Why is she like that? What directions on leadership did she learn or mislearn?,” she adds.
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