Jennifer Aniston Opened Up About The “Brutal” Reality Of Filming The “Friends” Reunion, Which Affected Them Much More Than They Anticipated

“It’s nostalgic in a way that’s kind of also a little melancholy, you know, ‘cause a lot has changed. We have all gone down different roads… Some easy and some not-so easy, for each of us.”

Jennifer Aniston has opened up about the reality of filming the Friends reunion, which aired earlier this year.
In a guest appearance on the podcast Literally! With Rob Lowe, Jennifer revealed that it was a lot more difficult than she and her Friends costars — David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, and Matt LeBlanc — had anticipated.
“We didn’t know what it would look like,” Jennifer responded when asked if the reunion was everything she thought it would be. “I mean, we’d been hearing about it for a long time, [and] we knew that people wanted it — fans really wanted kind of a reunion.”
However, despite the excitement around the special — which marked 17 years since the fan-favorite sitcom came to an end — Jen found that it wasn’t what she’d expected.
“I think it really took us all down way harder than we anticipated,” Jennifer admitted.
The 52-year-old actor went on to share that the set was identical to how it had been when they’d filmed the sitcom, revealing that it had “the exact same everything, down to the little tchotchkes on the shelves, and little tiny things that had been in storage space [the] whole time.”
“All of a sudden, here you are, and, you know, 16 years… a lot has gone on for each of us,” she said. “Sixteen years ago, we were all sort of wide-eyed, bushy-tailed, and sort of had our whole lives ahead of us, even though we were heartbroken to say goodbye to these 10 years and… the job we all loved to do.”

“It brought so much joy to fans and ourselves,” Jennifer said, speaking of the beloved show. “I mean, it was like having a happy pill every single day.”
“So, going back there — it’s nostalgic in a way that’s kind of also a little melancholy, you know, ‘cause a lot has changed,” she said.
“We have all gone down different roads,” she went on. “Some easy and some not-so easy, for each of us.”

“It was brutal,” Jennifer added. “And you also can’t turn it off! … There are cameras everywhere, and I can’t stop crying.”