Interview: Jennifer Aniston

Free love never works,” asserts Jennifer Aniston, cornflower blue eyes moment-arily registering a subtext of hurt as we discuss her latest role: a stressed-out New Yorker seeking refuge in a commune in Wanderlust.

“For some people, maybe it’s possible, but I don’t know how you can sustain that. At some point, that’s not going to be fun.” Later the same day, when marie claire meets with her current love and Wanderlust co-star, Justin Theroux, he goes even further: “Free love? No, it doesn’t work. Its called cheating.” Meeting Theroux, it becomes instantly apparent why the pair work so well together, and the reason Aniston is so luminous. “He’s a protector, for sure,” she says softly. “He’s just a good human being, and so funny.”

Always the funniest member of Friends, today Aniston is even poking fun at those pesky pregnancy rumours. “Can you hear that? That’s my twin kicking!” she laughs.

Shooting Wanderlust (which will be released on DVD later this year), in rural Clarkesville, Georgia, proved to be a surprisingly cathartic experience for Aniston. “All of a sudden I began decompressing. It’s weird, but it felt like living a normal life; almost like having your anonymity back. Nobody bothered us and we were protected as a group. There were no paparazzi and no secret, tricky little cell-phone pictures being taken.

“I realised how paranoid and guarded and not trusting – walled-in – I had become. Not consciously so, but just this armour that I kind of have, protective armour. It’s not for my friends or family, but for being outside in the world, always on guard. After the first week, I felt like John Travolta in The Boy In The Plastic Bubble, like riding on a horse out of the bubble. I felt my body just relax and I was like, ‘God, I’m so paranoid and pent-up, and what’s over there and who’s ducking here? And they said what?’ All that toxic clutter was suddenly alleviated.

“I’ve really made a conscious effort to not wall myself up like that again. I built those walls pretty high in the past. I think you miss out on a lot of stuff when you’re so protected and isolated. So it was a nice feeling and I took it home with me, and now it’s like, ‘Who cares?’” says the actress, who felt relaxed enough to shoot a topless scene; although, in the film, her boobs are blurred out. Not at her own insistence – as some tabloids have wrongly reported – but rather, when you see the film, you’ll see how it’s part of the gag.

“There are always nerves when you shoot a scene like that,” admits Aniston, today fully clothed in Current/Elliott jeans, black Alaïa heels, a Balmain shirt and black satin jacket. Gold bracelets and chains glitter at her wrist and neck. “But the adrenaline takes you through it and then you have the girls come in and cover you up immediately. I got very comfortable with seeing nude people, pretty much immediately. It was bizarre to know that these were actually nudists – because there’s a nudist colony in Clarkesville – and how comfortable they are being nude. Then there’d be the ones you could just tell weren’t the authentic nudists because they were, um … ‘groomed’, and so you could spot a fake miles away,” she laughs. “That’s where sunglasses come in handy!"

Returning home, Aniston set in place her new life’s mantra. “I realised it was only me who was stopping myself from living my life. Yes, I need to do things to keep myself safe, but I’ve made a conscious effort to reconnect with people. We do spend too much time on computers and smartphones, and we don’t pick up a phone and call people anymore. All those sort of little things, I’m trying to change.”

Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux get cosy for a photoshoot with Terry Richardson

As Aniston talks, it’s difficult to pull your eyes away from the gold ring, designed by Anna Sheffield, she’s wearing. “It was a gift … from my friend,” she says coyly, despite the fact Theroux’s name is engraved on the unique rectangle strip of gold stretching across two fingers.

Since romance blossomed for the couple last year, they’ve split their time between New York and Los Angeles, with Aniston having sold her showcase Beverly Hills home for $35 million.

“I’ve just downsized tremendously,” she explains. “I had a moment where I felt it was too big and I wanted to simplify. But it wasn’t just the size literally, it was too many people, all the things that had to happen in order for this to maintain itself, and work and run; I just started to feel it wasn’t me.

“And as beautiful as it was, and as much fun and joy as I got out of building it, I woke up going, ‘This is too much.’ I don’t want to have to work to maintain a home and then I’m never in it because I’m working.

That sort of defeats the purpose of working to enjoy your life, which I am of the school of. I want to work to live, I don’t want to live to work.” “So, now I’ve got a chicken coop,and I’m very excited about my eggs,” she says, giggling at the inferred double meaning. “I’ve cracked a bunch and many have twins in them.”

Ranked at number 21 – just four places behind Donald Trump – on Forbes’s most recent 100 World’s Most Powerful Celebrities list, it’s redundant to ask whether a woman of her sophistication could ever contemplate hippy-style commune living, such as in Wanderlust, but she wants to tell you anyway: “I don’t think I’ve ever found that kind of lifestyle appealing. It’s like when I hear people talk about Burning Man. I just have no desire to go there, or Coachella. I’ve never been good in crowds, or even going to concerts.”

Not quite the same as when the crowds lined up last February to watch Aniston receive her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, cheered on by her proud boyfriend, who was sitting alongside her actor dad, John Aniston.

It takes a confident man to sustain a relationship with a powerful woman, and the couple happen to have met at a time when Theroux’s career is set to skyrocket. He’s penned the script for Tom Cruise’s upcoming musical film, Rock Of Ages, and has a slew of other writing/acting assignments in place.

Together, they recently adopted a puppy called Sophie. Aware that she sounds like a wannabe mum when talking about their pooch, Aniston even admits to US GQ magazine: “I think people maybe want me to have a kid now. I still kind of go with, ‘If it happens, it happens.’ I’m calm and peaceful with whatever the plan is. It’s not something where I’m going, ‘I gotta have a kid!’”

The actress receives her star on the Hollywood walk of fame

Having recently celebrated her 43rd birthday, Aniston wishes she knew in her 30s what she knows now: “If I could go back in time, I would tell myself not to care so much about things that don’t need to be cared about. Because there are people out there that want to diminish you. And that’s just their own thing. And to know truthfully that that’s BS, and they’re
trying to belittle you and make you feel like you’re insignificant …

“But none of this is life and death. What was always important to me then is still important to me now, which is my friendships and nurturing those and keeping those alive.”

It’s the stuff of legend that for 10 years, Aniston lunched on the same salad every day on the set of Friends; her enviably slim-yet-curvy frame is still one of the best bods in the business.

Laughing at her earlier diet fanaticism, she comments, “I stopped dieting when I figured out that you just have to eat regularly and properly, within moderation. The fads are too much, the fasts, or when you hear people saying, ‘I’m going on a cleanse.’ It’s just so bad for your body. This is going to sound so silly, but being in the sun for 20 minutes a day is really important, too, because we’re now having vitamin D deficiencies because of all the SPF. So I’d say the sun is not the enemy.

“Also, I think being happy and smiling and laughing a lot helps. I work out, I drink a lot of water,” she says. “And yoga is still very important. I love it. If I don’t do it then my spirit sort of goes. I haven’t done much running in the last year. I had a terrible knee injury.”

Aniston’s flawless complexion, she admits, is part genes – “My father is almost 80 and still has gorgeous skin” – and part laser, telling US InStyle: “I’d love to be a dermatologist. I’d be so obsessive about it. I’m fascinated by skin, products and lasers. I go on the internet and read all about it. I call it ‘laser porn’.”

Today, she backtracks a little: “Yes, I’ve done laser, but I don’t honestly think it does anything. I don’t know, I haven’t figured it out. But it will make you feel good and it’ll take the sun spots away.

“And you know what? The older I get, the younger I feel.”