The one movie Jennifer Aniston thinks is “so embarrassing”
Although she is best known for her work on the hit sitcom Friends, Jennifer Aniston has enjoyed a successful career outside of the group of 20-somethings who get up to endless hijinks in Manhattan. Whether it be Bruce Almighty, Marley & Me, Wanderlust, or We’re the Millers, more often than not, Aniston has been in successful productions, with most doing their bit to crystallise her standing as one of her generation’s most successful actors.
While not every film of hers is of commendable quality, as the 2019 film Murder Mystery shows, more often than not, you can guarantee that Aniston will provide a laugh or two. Comedy is something that the Californian excels at. This point makes itself very clear when you look at her work – from Friends to Horrible Bosses. Jennifer Aniston is a provider of good times, and it’s something that has always helped her maintain a fan following.
Despite Aniston having such a glittering career that has seen her win a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Golden Globe, there are some projects she doesn’t look back on with great fondness. For the Friends star, there is one in particular that she has dismissed as “so embarrassing”.
This is the 1993 comedy-horror Leprechaun, in which Warwick Davis plays a vengeful leprechaun who hunts a family he believes has stolen his pot of gold. One of the ultimate cult films, it grossed $8.6 million against a budget of $1 million and spawned a series of films in the process. Despite it being a favourite of movie geeks worldwide, Aniston looks back on the movie and cringes. She revealed that at the time of the film’s release, she feared it would derail her career, which was only just getting started.
In a 2021 video interview with InStyle Magazine, Aniston revealed her true thoughts on Leprechaun, which came via mention of one of her other early films, 1999’s Office Space. At one point during the interview, she was challenged to pick items from a bag that each had relevance to her life. Here, she looked back on Office Space and discussed how it became a cult title.
“Office Space [was] one of the first movies I ever did,” Aniston recalled. “No one thought it would become the cult classic that it did, but it’s pretty cool if you ask me.”
She continued: “There’s loads of movies where you’re thinking: ‘Oh god, this is just… how am I going to survive this in my future?’ And then it’s a cult… ‘something’ because it’s so embarrassing.”
The actor then explained that she didn’t mean that Office Space was an “embarrassing” picture. “That movie wasn’t! That movie was special,” she said before humorously murmuring: “I was talking about Leprechaun.”
Aniston’s revelation comes after comments she made in 2019 when she said she had re-watched Leprechaun ten years earlier with her ex-boyfriend Justin Theroux. Although the couple stuck it on for “s***s and giggles”, she couldn’t bear it and kept leaving the room “cringing”.
I wonder how Warwick Davis feels about the film.