Jennifer Aniston was forced to drop 30 pounds in order to land her career-launching role on Friends.
In a new book released as part of the 25th anniversary of the iconic series, Generation Friends: An Inside Look at the Show That Defined a Television Era, author Saul Austerlitz reveals Aniston was asked to slim down significantly in order to portray Rachel Green.
“She had to lose thirty pounds if she wanted to stay in Hollywood,” Austerlitz says in his book. “Los Angeles was a tough place to be an actress – it was a tough place to be a woman – and Jennifer Aniston’s agent was reluctantly leveling with her.”
He adds, “Aniston was hardly fat – everyone could see she was beautiful – but as the show she would one day become indelibly associated with later made a point of noting, the camera added ten pounds.”
Aniston previously opened up on the pressure she faced to be skinny in a 1996 cover story for Rolling Stone.
“My agent gave it to me straight,” she told the publication at the time. “Nicest thing he ever did…. The disgusting thing of Hollywood – I wasn’t getting lots of jobs ’cause I was too heavy.”
The We’re the Millers star, now 50, appeared on the hit from 1994 until 2004.
