NEED TO KNOW
Jennifer Aniston was always working to impress one person in particular.
The actress, 56, was raised by actor John Aniston, who died at 89 in 2022, and actress Nancy Dow, who died in 2016. The couple divorced when she was 9 years old, but for Jennifer, seeking approval from her dad was a lifelong endeavor.
She told Vanity Fair that she grew up hoping that if she found success as an actor, then her dad would “love me as much as I love him.”
Her quest to impress the Days of Our Lives star defined much of her early career.
“It was the thing that drove me and was also my biggest heartbreak: trying to impress and prove your value to a man who’s only capable of so much,” Jennifer said.
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The LolaVie founder was admittedly “always wanting to get Pop’s approval,” and she told the outlet that before he died nearly three years ago, she was able to hear her dad say he’s proud of her.
“We had a few of those moments,” she revealed.
The actress has previously described her childhood as rocky, as she admitted that her home “felt unsafe.”
In 2020, when Sandra Bullock said that she has “a way of pushing joy and positivity” and asked what inspires that, Jennifer gave a candid reflection on her childhood.
“First of all, that was the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me,” she said in the Interview Magazine story.
“I think that it comes from growing up in a household that was destabilized and felt unsafe, watching adults being unkind to each other,” she said.
During her childhood, the Morning Show star said she witnessed “certain things about human behavior that made me think: ‘I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to be that. I don’t want to experience this feeling I’m having in my body right now. I don’t want anyone else that I ever come in contact with ever to feel that.'”
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She continued, “So I guess I have my parents to thank. You can either be angry or be a martyr, or you can say, ‘You’ve got lemons? Let’s make lemonade.'”
A 1990 interview that resurfaced a few years ago showed Jennifer got the approval from her father that she dreamed of.
John said in an interview with E! News that his daughter “is a natural talent.”
“There are certain things you can learn in this business, and there are certain things you can’t learn. The comic instinct that she has in unerring,” he said in the 1990 interview, before her breakout role on Friends. “That’s her greatest asset.”
Calling her a “natural” while Jennifer blushed at the compliment, he recalled the first time he saw her really perform — and how impressed he was.
“The first time I saw her [act] was an audition scene that she did for Search for Tomorrow,” he said. “I was stunned. I was really stunned. I said, ‘This kid is unbelievable.'”
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“She was far and away the best,” he said of his daughter’s audition.
