The actress, 52, revealed that she and her castmates were “naive” going into the HBO special and stated that: “Time travel is hard.”
Aniston, who played Rachel Greene on the show, opened up about the experience in a lengthy interview with The Hollywood Reporterin which she reflected on her career.
“I think we were just so naive walking into it, thinking, ‘How fun is this going to be? They’re putting the sets back together, exactly as they were.’ Then you get there and it’s like, ‘Oh right, I hadn’t thought about what was going on the last time I was actually here,’” she said.
The original Friends ran on NBC from September 22, 1994, to May 6, 2004.
Friends: The Reunion aired in May of this year to much fanfare as the cast of the beloved reunion reunited to bask in the memories of their time on the show.
However, being confronted with her past in that way was “jarring” for Aniston.
“And it just took me by surprise because it was like, ‘Hi, past, remember me? Remember how that sucked? You thought everything was in front of you and life was going to be just gorgeous and then you went through maybe the hardest time in your life?’” she explained.
“It was all very jarring and, of course, you’ve got cameras everywhere and I’m already a little emotionally accessible, I guess you could say, so I had to walk out at certain points. I don’t know how they cut around it.”
The reunion was deemed a success when it aired earlier this year. Aniston has now shed some light on the impact it had on her and her co-stars and how it reminded them of the sudden shift they had in their work and personal lives once the show ended.
“That was what was jarring, that we all had an idea of what the future was going to be and we were going to go hunker down and focus on this or that and then it all just changed overnight, and that was it,” she said.
“But again, everything’s a blessing if you’re able to look at life’s ups and downs in that way. And if it all hadn’t happened, I would not be sitting here the woman that I am.”
