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Jennifer Aniston needed to lose 30lbs before landing Friends: 'I was like, "What?!"'


Jennifer Aniston needed to lose 30lbs before landing Friends in the ’90s: ‘My diet was terrible – milk shakes and French fries with gravy’

Jennifer Aniston had to go on a big diet before she could land the type of roles she wanted in Hollywood.

According to a new book in honor of Friends’ 25th anniversary – Generation Friends: An Inside Look at the Show That Defined a Television Era – the beauty, now 50, was told by her agent to shed the pounds.

‘She had to lose thirty pounds if she wanted to stay in Hollywood,’ Saul Austerlitz wrote 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.’ 

Fuller: Jennifer Aniston was fuller faced before she landed her show Friends

Big diet: She changed her menu and lost 30lbs which helped her land a role on Friends

She went on a diet to land roles: Jennifer Aniston had to lose 30lbs in the 1990s to win roles, it’s claimed in a new book

She looks fine here! The siren is seen here in 1992 for the TV show The Portrait Edge

She looks fine here! The siren is seen here in 1992 for the TV show The Portrait Edge

The star already knew that Hollywood was a tough place.

Her father is John Aniston, a soap opera vet. And she had dipped her toe in acting with the TV shows Ferris Bueller and Molloy. 

‘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,’ wrote Saul.

The old Jen: '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,' it was written; here Jennifer is seen with Ami Dolenz, and Charlie Schlatter in Ferris Bueller

The old Jen: ‘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,’ it was written; here Jennifer is seen with Ami Dolenz, and Charlie Schlatter in Ferris Bueller

And she looks great here too: Aniston and Mayim Bialik in Molloy (1990)

And she looks great here too: Aniston and Mayim Bialik in Molloy (1990)

She knew the industry well and adapted: The beauty is the daughter of John Aniston, a soap opera star; seen in 1995

She knew the industry well and adapted: The beauty is the daughter of John Aniston, a soap opera star; seen in 1995

Jennifer talked about the pressure to be rail thin in her 1996 cover story for Rolling Stone. 

‘I ate too many mayonnaise sandwiches. Mayonnaise on white bread –— the most delicious thing in the world,’ she said.

But she knew she would have to make changes. 

Very slender: Looking thin in a white dress at the Emmy Awards in 2004

Very slender: Looking thin in a white dress at the Emmy Awards in 2004

‘My agent gave it to me straight,’ she told the magazine. ‘Nicest thing he ever did…. The disgusting thing of Hollywood — I wasn’t getting lots of jobs ’cause I was too heavy.

‘I was like, “What?!” But my diet was terrible. Milk shakes and French fries with gravy,’ she said. ‘It was a good thing to start paying attention.’ 

After she dropped the pounds, she was hired on Friends which aired from 1994 until 2004.  

She is now heading back to TV with The Morning Show. 

Aniston told The New York Times this month that she feels good about the future. ‘I’m entering into what I feel is one of the most creatively fulfilling periods of my life,’ she said. ‘Seriously I’ve been doing this for 30 years and I feel like it’s just about to really bloom.’

Another TV show: The blonde is going back to the small screen as she stars in The Morning Show with Reese Witherspoon this fall

Another TV show: The blonde is going back to the small screen as she stars in The Morning Show with Reese Witherspoon this fall

 



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