The co-star Jennifer Aniston hated working with: “The one guy I hate. That’s the guy they hire”
The American TV icon Jennifer Aniston might have appeared in countless movies, but she’ll always be known for her starring role in the influential sitcom Friends. Appearing alongside the likes of David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry and Matt LeBlanc, Aniston thrived on the show which would later catapult her to international acclaim.
The role as Rachel in the series would endear Anniston to the hearts of the entire nation. A fashion-savvy beauty may have been her vocation on set, but Anniston off set also garnered a lot of attention for being one of the more accessible members of Hollywood elite. She was, by and large, a girl next door. It made for alluring prospect for the film industry.
It wouldn’t be long before Aniston began being coveted by high-profile studios aiming to cash in on America’s most recent sweetheart’s newfound fame. While Friends was her main vehicle for stardom, Aniston was wise not to put all her eggs in one basket and took a number of movie roles during her time on the show. One such film was the 1997 romance flick Picture Perfect. This forgettable romantic comedy tells the story of a young advertising executive who pretends to be engaged to a man she’s just met in order to impress her boss.
Acting opposite Aniston was the lesser-known star Jay Mohr, a comedian who had only recently transitioned to movie roles, but this was not as per the Friends icon’s wishes, wanting Tate Donovan instead, an actor she was dating at the time.
This conflict of interest led to a frosty set during the 1997 production, with Mohr opening up about his time with Aniston during a 2011 episode of the podcast Mohr Stories. Their bad working relationship began early on during production, with the actor recalling: “As she’s walking toward us to walk past us, she’s pointing to [co-star] Illeana Douglas and she goes, ‘Six guys they screen tested. Six!’…And then points at me and goes, ‘The one [expletive] guy I hate, that’s the guy they hire. Him!'”.
Supposedly hating Mohr so much simply because he had taken Donovan’s role, Aniston reportedly gave the actor a pretty tricky time on set. It’s something that doesn’t;t feel aligned with the Aniston we know on-screen or in interviews, but perhaps this shows how much people can change behind the curtain.
“I realise she’s been telling these people I’m a piece of dog, and she can’t believe I got the part,” he added, “Like she even told them, so that when the scene was finished, she just looked at them, and went, ‘See?’ Like, see what I mean? How terrible this all is?”.
Aniston’s behaviour towards Mohr was allegedly so bad that the latter felt like he had to return home. Continuing, he adds: “Jennifer Anniston was so mean to me that on the weekend, I drove to Verona, New Jersey, to my mom and dad’s house. I put my head in my mother’s lap, and I cried…My mom thinks I’m like HIV-positive, I’ve killed someone…I go, ‘She’s so mean…I finally got a leading role, a romantic leading man in a movie. I’m number two on the call sheet, that’s impossible, and she’s just so mean.'”
Check out the pair of actors in the trailer for Picture Perfect below.
