Jennifer Aniston on Angelina Jolie Rivalry: ‘It’s Ridiculous’

Jennifer Aniston has apparently talked about Angelina Jolie briefly in her interview. The former “Friends” star said it’s “ridiculous” to be pitted against her ex-husband Brad Pitt’s current wife in tabloids.

The 45-year-old Emmy Award winner sat down with the New York Times to talk about her latest film “Cake,” in which she plays a woman suffering from chronic pain. Having starred in a highly successful sitcom for ten years, it’s hard for some people to see Aniston in a different acting light other than comedy.

That’s why her role in “Cake” is a new one for her and for her fans. And it appears she has transitioned smoothly to drama; she has also won a couple of acting awards, and is currently nominated for Best Actress at the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, Golden Globe Awards and Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Going to drama wasn’t always as easy. There were roles that she wanted to take but “then the obvious previous Oscar winners would get them.” She refused to name who the other Oscar winners were, though, the paper suggested Jolie, who won a trophy for Best Supporting Actress for “Girl, Interrupted” in 2000.

“It’s ridiculous – that the two names have to go into the same sentence and there has to be a compare-and-despair thing,” Aniston said, presumably talking about Jolie. The paper mentioned a tabloid plot for the Oscar race, though, which apparently sees Jolie getting a slim chance of an Oscar nod for “Unbroken,” while Aniston is a favourite to receive a Best Actress nomination for “Cake.” It also remarked on Jolie being called a spoilt brat by Sony producer Scott Rudin in leaked emails.

Aniston wouldn’t want anything to do with the stories, though. “I don’t want to give any fuel to the fire,” she said. As the New York Times noted, she is “practiced and game enough to permit 30 seconds of conversation about Ms Jolie and Mr Pitt. But a full minute is pushing it,” adding that Aniston’s posture visibly stiffened.

She was married to Pitt from 2000 to 2005, and rumours claimed it was Jolie who broke that marriage. Pitt and Jolie starred in the spy romance “Mr & Mrs Smith,” and shortly after, Pitt and Aniston announced their divorced. Since then, Aniston and Jolie have been pitted against each other in the media. People also took sides in the imagined rivalry between the two women, with Aniston made to look like a scorned ex, and Jolie a vicious temptress.

For Aniston, though, her marriage to Pitt was already in the past. Talking to CBS News, she said she doesn’t find her divorce painful. She understands why the media keep making stories up about her and him since they had an interesting story, but “everybody has” already moved on.

“I don’t find it painful, though. I think it’s a narrative that follows you because it’s an interesting headline. It’s more of a media-driven topic,” she said, adding that she has exchanged good wishes with Pitt, but it’s not a “constant thing.”

Jennifer Aniston on Divorce With Brad Pitt: ‘I Don’t Find It Painful’