Jennifer Aniston gets emotional discussing ‘Friends’ turning 30 with Quinta Brunson: ‘It’s a happy tear’

Jennifer Aniston still gets emotional thinking about her Friends.

In a conversation with Quinta Brunson for Variety’s Actors on Actors series, the Morning Show actress became teary-eyed while discussing her star-making sitcom. After a producer prompts Brunson to ask about what it’s like to watch Friends in 2024, Aniston says, “Oh God, don’t make me cry.” Brunson empathetically responds, but notes, “But you’re already crying. Do you want a minute? We don’t have to talk about —”

“No, no. Sorry,” Aniston says. “I just started thinking about…Yeah, no. I’m okay. It’s a happy tear.”

After getting her bearings, Aniston talks about Friends turning 30. “It’s so strange to even think that it’s 30 years old, because I remember the day that it was going to premiere on television, on NBC,” she explains. “Me and Matthew Perry were having lunch somewhere, and we knew Lisa [Kudrow] was getting her hair colored. So we ran into the hair salon, and I snuck up — she was in the sink, hair bowl — and I took the nozzle and just started washing her hair from the guy that was supposed to be doing it. It definitely flew out of control, and that was unfortunate. But the excitement we had, it feels like yesterday.”

Aniston says she appreciates the long legacy of the sitcom. “The fact that it’s had this long, wonderful life and it still means a lot to people is one of the greatest gifts I think all five of us — all six of us — we never could imagine,” she says. “I talked on FaceTime with [Courteney Cox] last night for an hour, and Lisa and the boys, and we just have a really — it’s a family forever.”

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The actress also explains how the technology and cultural norms during Friends’ heyday allowed her and her costars to escape criticism of the show. “It was in the ’90s and 2000s, and we had a luxury of there not being social media or the internet, so we were so isolated and protected,” she says. “You weren’t faced with what people are commenting and ripping you apart or whatever. It was a dreamy time, and I know I sound sort of nostalgic, but we were really about the work, we were really about the show… It was really an innocent time, where we could roam about the world a lot easier.”

Watch the full conversation between Aniston and Brunson above.