Jennifer Aniston struggled to "escape" from her ‘Friends’ character after the show came to an end in 2004.
The 51-year-old actress starred as Rachel Green in the hit sitcom from 1994 to 2004, and has said she found it hard to leave the role behind when the show wrapped, because people only recognised her as her character.
She said: "You just exhaust yourself. I mean, I could not get Rachel Green off of my back for the life of me. I could not escape ‘Rachel from Friends,’ and it’s on all the time and you’re like, ‘Stop playing that f***ing show!’ ‘The Good Girl’ was the first time I got to really shed whatever the Rachel character was, and to be able to disappear into someone who wasn’t that was such a relief to me."
But when Jennifer did land other parts, she began to "panic", as she believed Rachel Green was the only role she was suited to.
She added: "But I remember the panic that set over me, thinking, ‘Oh God, I don’t know if I can do this. Maybe they’re right. Maybe everybody else is seeing something I’m not seeing, which is you are only that girl in the New York apartment with the purple walls.’ So, I was almost doing it for myself just to see if I could do something other than that. And it was terrifying because you’re doing it in front of the world."
The ‘Morning Show’ star says she was left "constantly trying to prove" that she was "more" than her ‘Friends’ character, until she got older and began to stop caring what other people thought of her.
Speaking during The Hollywood Reporter’s annual drama actress roundtable, she explained: "So, I just fought with myself and who I was in this industry forever, and it was constantly about trying to prove that I was more than that person. But there is such a freedom in getting older because you just stop giving a crap."