Life

Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon on new Apple TV+ drama The Morning Show

Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon star as news anchors in Apple TV+'s new drama The Morning Show. We quizzed the former Friends stars about their on-screen reunion.

Jennifer Aniston as Alex Levy and Steve Carell as Mitch Kessler in The Morning Show
Jennifer Aniston as Alex Levy and Steve Carell as Mitch Kessler in The Morning Show Jennifer Aniston as Alex Levy and Steve Carell as Mitch Kessler in The Morning Show

IT'S BEEN NEARLY 20 YEARS SINCE YOU APPEARED TOGETHER IN FRIENDS. HAD YOU BEEN LOOKING TO REUNITE?

JA: We have been looking for years and we just never found the right thing that seemed to click for both of us – and this did.

Michael [Ellenberg, executive producer] came to both of us and it was kind of a dream scenario. We then figured out a schedule – "it will be this way" but it didn't work that way. It was harder than we all thought, everyone was like: "What have we gotten ourselves into?".

JENNIFER, IT'S YOUR FIRST TV FOR 15 YEARS. ARE YOU GLAD TO BE BACK?

It is but it doesn't really feel like it. In terms of the workload, it didn't feel like going back to television so much because the schedule was insane.

Let me tell you something, this is not what it used to be, it was a lot easier than this. Or maybe we are just a little older?

But it was fantastic, we had so much fun, we worked so hard, but it was the most rewarding thing I've done in years.

THE DRAMA EXPLORES THE #METOO ERA. IT MUST HAVE FELT LIKE QUITE A RESPONSIBILITY?

RW: I'm enormously grateful to the women who spoke up and exposed the harassment and the hostile work environments that they have experienced. It really felt like a responsibility that we had to help tell those stories but also to reveal the human side of it.

And I'm also very grateful to Steve Carell (who plays the disgraced TV host) for really joining in on this conversation because men need to be part of it, too.

JA: I think we feel responsibility with any drama, any creative material we are in is a responsibility, but especially this. I think Kerry Ehrin, our writer and creator, really wrote a brilliant script, and layered and complicated characters, and also took a look at this whole new normal that we are all walking through. In a very not black and white (way) she allowed the grey areas to be explored.

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT THAT TV REFLECTS THE CURRENT CLIMATE?

JA: It should at least. What was important to us was the tone and how we approach these subjects, which was as it was happening in the world.

I know everyone is trying to figure out this new "normal" and the clumsiness of it and the messiness of it and the things you're forbidden to say behind closed doors – so I think they did a really wonderful job.

RW: I think when you get to the place that I'm at or Jen's at, it's important that we advocate for others because it doesn't work if it's just for us.

It's opening the door for other people so I'm enormously proud to be in this position, I take it very seriously.

JA: We have so much more to do. Twenty years ago, 30 years ago, that's when they were sending women out to pasture – we're just getting started.

YOU'RE EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS ON THE SHOW – IS THE TIDE TURNING FOR EQUALITY IN HOLLYWOOD?

RW: Women are stepping up into leadership positions but it's definitely a gender-balanced production. We had just as many men as women and I think that is great, we are finally getting to parity, which is really nice.

It was quite a few years later [after Friends] so we had different experience, but it was great to be in a producer position now because we have learned so much and we have a lot to add.

:: The Morning Show is available now on Apple TV+